Keywords: Globalization, social and economic activities, transformation, challenges, benefits, contradictions, capital flow, technology, corporate, trade, political, inequality.
The Transformation of Social Worlds is an interesting article by Stanley Eitzen and Maxine Zinn. The authors explore the globalization process and how different societies and groups have been shaped in the present and the past. The first chapter introduces globalization as the process through which social and economic issues interconnect people around the world. In addition, the history of globalization has been in existence since the 1900s (Eitzen and Maxine 1). Nonetheless, due to economic volatility and continental speed, connections have been transformed through changed production and marketing methods. In essence, this study will discuss the extents to which ideologies related to political, organizational, cultural, trade policies, technologies, and travel modes have changed due to globalization.
In the second chapter, different debates encompassing globalization are outlined. The first part discusses Anthony Gidden’s perspective on globalization. In this section, Gidden’s acknowledges that economic life has changed for the better due to globalization, with both capital and financial flow improving steadily (Eitzen and Maxine 13). Nonetheless, the process of globalization is not easy, considering that large economies have collapsed from global economic activities. However, according to Gidden, if existing policy-making institutions are reconstructed, all the setbacks associated with globalization will be resolved. The second part talks about Thomas Friedman’s ideology of a flat world. According to Friedman, globalization has contracted the world into one flat universe, posing positive and negative impacts on the inhabitants (Eitzen and Maxine 18). For instance, globalization is attributed to the efficient delivery of capital universally, but plenty of terror activities have increased due to enhanced communication. Notably, part three discusses the Pankaj Ghemawat’s opinion on why the world is not flat. According to Pankaj, globalization highly contributes to inequality since few people benefit from this process, while security reasons restrain and constrain traveling issues (Eitzen and Maxine 25). Therefore, Pankaj maintains that globalization is not yet a reality. Thus, governments should be cautious when constructing state policies governing global economics.
The last part discusses the ideology of three authors, Jeremy Breacher, Tim Costello, and Brendan Smith on the specters of globalization. According to Jeremy et al., the 20th-century social-economic platform has integrated in the sense of ideologies and policies within the political, corporate, cultural, production, marketing, and digital arenas (Eitzen and Maxine 31). Nonetheless, unexpectedly several contradictions that pose harm arise from globalization. For instance, there has been an increase in poverty, inequality, economic deregulation, environmental degradation, and political instability.
As evident from the analysis, the authors have narrated the extent to which globalization has contributed to changing all aspects of life in today’s world. In fact, the authors acknowledge that this process has positively impacted the social, economical platform globally. However, the same writers have also provided that there are myriads of challenges and contradictions resulting from globalization.
Works Cited
Eitzen, D S, and Maxine B. Zinn. Globalization: The Transformation of Social Worlds. , 2012.
Print.