Globalisation 2 Essay, Research Paper

Globalisation

Lower wages and reduced public spending mean less buying power leading to stagnation, recession and unemployment (Brecher and Costello 25). In this paper, I will evaluate globalization and show how its negative effects are widespread: how it affected Chiapas and how the Zapatistas fought back, how it affects South American women working on the banana republics and how it ravages the environment. Globalization has detrimental effects on every aspect of life, whether domestic or on the world-stage.

The advent of NAFTA resulted in the creation of a free-trade agreement amongst the United States, Canada and Mexico. An anti-NAFTA coalition was formed in the indigent Mexican state of Chiapas (New Statesman and Society 1). Indigenous people also received their own radio station free of government control (New Statesman and Society 1). NAFTA does nothing to promote the well being or help the people of Mexico. The fundamental banana republics were those Central American countries, which came to be determined by the United Fruit Company’s monoculture, the U.S marines and the handpicked dictators (Enloe 133). Behind every all-male banana plantation are scores of women performing unpaid domestic and productive labor (Enloe 137). Weeding and cleaning are the women’s jobs. Women are hired by the companies to do low-paid, seasonal jobs that offer little training and promotion; some involve the hazards of chemical solution and sexual harassment (Enloe 139). Women are an intricate part of globalization. The large fruit companies, such as United Fruit pay their employees very little in attempts to reduce overhead in order in to increase profit. Globalization ignores ethical policies as ‘Third World Employees,’ are paid below the sustenance level in order to further a company’s profit.

Globalization, and the process of ‘downward leveling’, is destroying the environment at a faster rate than the environment can be replenished or improved. On a national level, Americans are the most wasteful people the world has known. In order to cut overhead and other costs, companies spend less money on treating their hazardous wastes. Globalization, although beneficial to the large first world countries, affects every aspect of the world, from the Indians of Chiapas, to women working in the ‘banana republics,’ to the environment. When an American company reduces costs by moving their factories to foreign countries, they exploit the local cheap labor, doing nothing to alleviate their squalor. One of the most devastating, irreparable effects of globalization is its effects on the environment. A company often reduces its costs by cutting back on environmental protection- a company does not filter or treat its chemical or toxic waste products; rather, they dump them into rivers, lakes and other waterways. The production of toxic gases deteriorates the ozone layer. Globalization may help those fortunate enough to live in the large industrialized, former imperialist countries, but it does nothing to help the extremely poor of the Third World.