If globalisation means increasing integration among nations on a world scale aimed at bringing uniformity in development, the process is often found falling short of and incompatible with social and economic demands of communities. The world is now largely in favour of globalisation, a current buzzword which is being forwarded by policy planners and economists, as a panacea for development of a fractious and ideologically varying world. While it has been found otherwise in practice and out of place if judged socially, it is being held aloft as the harbinger of change.
The effects of globalisation are outweighed by the negative impact that cultural assimilation has on individual communities. Another popular argument against globalisation points out that there are "winners" and "losers" instead of improvements that reach across the board. The winners are the developed countries and large corporations guide global activities to benefit their own specific interests. This development could actually result in political and economic instability.
The opponents of globalisation argue that as friendship between weak and strong partners does not last long, the concept of globalisation will disappear after sometime, leaving the world in a quandary. Questions have also arisen whether globalisation has appeared as an instrument for long-term exploitation or whether group interests are being advanced under its cover. As world capital is under the control of a few countries or establishments, multinational businesses are increasingly entering the resourceful countries of the Third World. In their bid to privatise further, the donor organisations are utilising their capital.
Now a word or two about how we have been entrapped by the maze of globalisation. It is true that free economy will facilitate the arrival of products from around the world, but duty-free facilities for those products are unacceptable as they dampen the prospects of home products and unemployment digs in. The developed countries are interested in globalising the pattern of development more than the developing world that seeks development. Globalisation is not just a method for achieving progress for the capitalist economy, it is a universal invitation for all countries to accept the method.
World economy has experienced structural transformation over time. An integrated network of world trade has evolved in the context of two separate stages. Stage one was a pre-war phenomenon and the second stage appeared during the post-war era. To distinguish this period from stage one, the process of structural transformation now taking place is conceptualised and demarcated as corporate globalisation. Given the growing increase in size, power and dominance of the MNCs, the locus of sovereignty is currently being questioned.
Another issue is being currently raised as to who will be in control of the globalisation process - the nation states or the MNCs. Culturally, analysts explain that the theory and policy of free trade as a whole is contained in a paradigm of cultural evolution fed by the dynamics of technological change and economic development. They term globalisation as the dynamics of structural transformation.
Large corporations reach across the world. They have the financial resources to develop an underdeveloped country by introducing Western automation and advanced production technology. They change people's lives in an underdeveloped country, and not always in a good way. This is corporate globalisation which has already taken over most of the world. Fifty-one of the world's top 100 economies are not countries but corporations. These transnational corporations essentially own the world. Corporate globalisation is responsible for the economic mess and the environmental disorder we find ourselves in, today.
Last but not least, corporate globalisation has no conscience. Only profit is recognised by the gigantic multinational corporations and human values are non-existent in a corporate culture.
