What Do You Understand By The Term Globalization Essay Example

ph? n anh ph? m vi bao trum va tinh ph? c t? p c? a toan c? u hoa. These different views reflect the covering scope and the complexities of globalization. Bao trum d? n n? i hinh nhu m? i ngu? i d? u nh? n th? y minh b? toan c? u hoa tac d? ng theo cach nay hay cach khac va ph? c t? p d? n n? i khong m? t ca nhan nao co th? nh? n th? c d? y d? v? no.

Covering in such a way that it seems everyone feel the impact of globalization in this way or another and it is too complicated that no individual can be fully aware of it. M? c dich c? a bai vi? t nay s? nh? m th? hi? n m? t s? suy nghi ca nhan v? the term of Globalisation. The purpose of this article is to show some personal thoughts on the term of Globalization. Bai vi? t t? p trung ch? y? u vao tinh hinh hi? n t? i c? a Vi? t Nam trong m? t s? linh v? c nhu van hoa, kinh t? , xa h? i. It focuses mainly on the current situation of Vietnam in a number of areas such as cultural, economic and social. What is globalisation?

In a simplest way, globalization can be understood by : “A process in which economic, political and cultural activities take place in a global space, are deliberately organized on a global scale, and are globally interdependent. ” (Nguyen,2010). For example, nowadays, English is considered as an international language, many

people like to eat McDonald’s hamburger, drink Coca Cola and wear American jeans. (Parvis, 2005:156) A great number of international companies like Unilever, HSBC, L’Oreal are available in many countries which form a worldwide exchange networks, connect people from all over the world.

Moreover, Toan c? u hoa v? b? n ch? t la s? m? r? ng th? tru? ng ra ngoai bien gi? i qu? c gia, m? t mong mu? n hi? n nhien c? a nh? ng qu? c gia co n? n kinh t? m? nh hon, s? n xu? t du? c nhi? u hang hoa hon so v? i cac nu? c khac. globalization is by itself a market expansion beyond national borders, an obvious desire of countries with stronger economies; produce more goods than other countries. Quy lu? t muon d? i v? n la: co th? tru? ng r? ng l? n hon, co nhi? u khach hang hon thi l? i nhu? n cang cao hon. The eternal law remains: having broader market, more customers leading to higher profit.

The effects of globalization can be seen in many different way as David held discussed : “Cultures, economies and politics appear to merge across the globe through the rapid exchange of information, ideas and knowledge, and the investment strategies of global corporations” (Held, 2000:6) Just look back into the history of Vietnam. ICh? ng h? n nhu nh? s? khai hoa c? a th? c dan Phap ma ngu? i Vi? t Nam co vi? c lam ? cac d? n di? n cao su, ? cac h? m mt was through the exploration of the French

colonist that Vietnamese were employed in the rubber plantations, in mines. Nh? an minh do nu? c m? Phap truy? n ba, ngu? i Vi? t Nam m? i bi? t dung den thay cho den d? u l? c,  bi? t b? di cai but long di thay b? ng but chi, m? t s? ngu? i du? c h? c ti? ng Tay, bi? t di xe d? p, bi? t an banh m? , bi? t u? ng s? a bo va ru? u sam banh… Hi? n nhien, cai du? c ch? ng bu cho cai m? t: dan ta m? t d? c l? p va t? do. Thanks to civilization spread by the French, the Vietnamese used electric lamps instead of oil lamps, discarded the brush and replaced with pencil; some learning the Western language, learning cycling, eating bread, drinking milk and champagne (Van, 2006).

Obviously, that did not compensated for the loss: our people lost their independence, freedom and our country lost its natural resources Hi? n nay tuy v? n con cac nu? c XHCN, nhung th? c t? khong con co hai c? c d? i khang c? a th? gi? i n? a. At present, there are many arguments about advantages and disadvantages which globalization offers each society. David Held has categorized three types of perspectives about globalisation which are globalists, inter-nationalists and transformationalist (Held, 2000:22). All these approaches are based on the concept of “nation-stares”.

Held defines that “globalists see globalization as an inevitable development which cannot be resisted or significantly influenced by human intervention such as nation-states”; while “Internationalists” stress the importance role

of nation-states in any economic and social activity. The “transfonationalists” are more eclectic than globalists and internationalist. They approve the significant impacts of globalization as well as “the significant scope for national, local and other agencies”. What “Globalization” can bring ? Globalization has many forms in which culture is the most affected aspect.

Cultural globalization is the rapid traversing of ideas, attitudes and values across national borders. This sharing of ideas generally leads to an interconnectedness and interaction between peoples of diverse cultures and ways of life. In 1960s, Marshall McLuhan – a media theorist has mentioned about the notion of “global village” to describe the effect that the ability to connect and exchange ideas instantaneously would bring to the world. (Mackay in Held, 2000: 55) Mass media and communication technologies are the primary instruments for cultural globalization.

For example, thanks to the media, Vietnamese football fan can enjoy all matches happening in South Africa lively or many world news can be reported to us directly and quickly. There are an internationalization of news exposes countries to foreign ideas, practices, and lifestyles. The development of computer technology — with its social networking sites, video sharing websites, blogging sites and various other tools — has served to accelerate cultural globalization, as there are no boundaries on the World Wide Web. Nowadays, people around the world can have access to discover the culture of other countries.

The best example of cultural globalization in Vietnam is the pop culture. The newest release of a musical group is rapidly disseminated to us through a variety of video sharing websites. We achieve the same artist idol like Michael Jackson, Britney

Spears or the same television programs such as Vietnam Idol, Who wants to be a millionaire as in the United States. Moreover, nowadays, globalizing helps Vietnamese student find it easier to study abroad for new methods of achieving knowledge. Labor exchange-programs provide Vietnamese workers with more advanced training and skilled working environment.

Another factors which promotes cultural globalization is the advances in transportation. It has facilitated physical travel to other countries, which in turn, has encouraged cross-cultural exchanges. We adopt many foreign practices and social norms like saying hello, bye-bye, sing Happy Birthday song in english or celebrating a number of international days such as Christmas eve, Valentine’s day, even Fool April’d day. Economic globalization is another form of globalization which seems to be the most important affected thing (Parvis, 2005: 158).

Economic globalization goes hand in glove with cultural globalization cause the more cultural homogeneity that is attained; the easier it is for businesses to sell their products globally. For example thanks to cultural globalization, certain goods such as Coca Cola and McDonald's burgers are sold the world over. Kelly and Prokhovnik in the book of David Held has quoted that “ Globlization is the process of corporate structuring that focuses a company’s core competency on a single worldwide market, creating growth and profit opportunities[…] It affects employees, customers, and suppliers.

The fundamental precepts of the vision are free flow of commerce, labor and capital and belief in the ability of an individual to significantly and favorably impact larger social and economic systems” (Held, 2000:86) The true effects of economic globalization has been largely accounted by developed economies integrating with less developed economies, by

means of foreign direct investment, the reduction of trade barriers, and the modernization of these developing cultures.

It made a the development of trading exchange, increasing global competition, bringing economic prosperity for developing countries. Kelly and Prokhovnik suggest that ‘an integrated global market accelerates the transfer of technology from the richer to the poorer countries (Held, 2000: 95). Within our country, more a more trans-national corporations engaging better salary and safer working standard are instituted such as Unilever, L'Oreal, HSBC... etc...

Local companies get more businesses from those trans-national corporation as producing factories and service providers, giving a boost for overall country's economy. Moreover, cross-country trading enables large amount of new products for our consumer at low tax rate. Competing with foreign goods pushes local producing standard to a higher level. Technology is improved, infrastructure is renewed. Many commercial centers constructed such as Parkson, Lottermart, Vincom... excite people's need for trading and shopping.

The economy, for that, is developed, the number of poor people goes down while those of rich is rising up. The drawbacks of globalization Theoretically, in any international relations, globalization needs to be implemented on the principles of equality, mutual benefits, no compulsion, and non-interference into internal affairs of every country. However, in fact, these principles are usually violated. It is obvious that nowadays, there seems to be no equality among the countries, between the big countries and the small countries, and between the rich ones and the poor ones.

We can take the USA as an example, which always claim that they give the best human rights to people. However, when joining in the United Nations, they resolutely take over a

seat in the United Nations Security Council, which allows them to have the right of veto to any decision, even when that decision is approved by every member except the USA. They give themselves the right to invade Iraq, a member of the United Nations, regardless of the objections from the United Nations, with the reason that Iraq has destructive weapons such as chemical and biological weapons.

Meanwhile, in the war with Vietnam before, they freely used orange agents to destroy the life of Vietnamese people and considered this act normal. These power countries often give themselves the right to make such irrational decisions and ask other countries to follow; otherwise, they will impose strict punishment (Van, 2006) The United Nations is the official organization of all the countries in the world, which has been established from globalization process.

Although this organization has brought many benefits to the whole world, it still cannot escape from the power of some big countries. No matter how the General Secretary of the United Nations objects to the war between the USA and Iraq, he still can do nothing but watches the war happens. After all, all the things he can do is to call for help from other countries for the country which has lost in the war. In this situation, some scholars has questioned whether “globalization” is considered as “Americanization”.

Giddens argues that “The dominance of the United States and the West more generally, over the rest of the world could be said to operate on three levels – the economic, the geopolitical and the cultural. The United States is easily the largest economy in the world

and whether one likes it or not, is the main motor of the global economy as a whole. ” In a short article by Keith Porter, he has quoted a 2004 column by Thomas Friedman: ". . . globalization is in so many ways Americanization: globalization wears Mickey Mouse ears, it drinks Pepsi and Coke, eats Big Macs, does its computing on an IBM laptop with Windows 98.

Many societies around the world can't get enough of it, but others see it as a fundamental threat. " (Porter, 2009) Just have a look at Vietnam. Though just in the early stages of the integration process, but we have to strive to confront with the output of the Western trends: being flooded with cultural depravation; spreading hip-hop music with mainstream trends of hip-hop fashion. In the communication activities, we produced the pro-American style action films; the music program or a game show formatting the program from the U.

S. (Who want to be a millionaire, Vietnamese Idol). We hold contests with prizes equivalent the American awards of Oscars for movies and music and the Grammy's for music such as HTV awards, The Golden kite… National cultural identity with the folk songs, traditional long dresses (ao dai) are likely fading out or deformed. In the field of economy, science and technology, workers’ skill, poor management level are the causes making the products made in Vietnam being, so far, not competitive on world markets.

Ex-factory prices of domestic products are higher than the imported ones. Take for instance, domestic steel price is averagely at US$300/ton while the imported ones only at US$285/ton ( Nguyen, 2006). During the integration

process, Vietnam has to signed agreements to reduce taxes and abolish some or all parts of the domestic commodity protection. Thus, the goods produced in the country will be easily beaten by the imported ones right at the home floor. In the international market, due o lacking of experience like the cases of basa fish, catfish, many businesses have lost their trade-marks for not registering trademark copyrights in the world. According to a recent report by the World Economic Forum, competitiveness of Vietnamese products only rank 53/59 countries. This is really a great challenge for the Government of Vietnam and its enterprises. Conclusion Globalization has been the subject of many books in recent years. Therefore, it is not easy to talk about this concept in a few pages.

In general, globalization can be perceives as goods and services accessible to people around the world. However, it is not considered as a “perfect product” by everyone. Many think that globalization brings socio-economics advantages such as creating jobs for millions peoples, speeding-up technologies and the global economic. Those who are against globalization condemn this concept with discrimination, environmental exploitation, violation off human rights and breach of international law.

Within the on-going debate, Thomas Friedman has generally consolidated the process of globalization as follows: “But I was also excited personally, because what the flattening of the world means is that we are now connecting all the knowledge centers on the planet together into a single global network, which-if politics and terrorism do not get in the way-could usher in an amazing era of prosperity and innovation. But contemplating the flat world also left me filled with dread, professional

and personal.

My personal dread derived from the obvious fact that it's not only the software writers and computer geeks who get empowered to collaborate on work in a flat world. It's also al-Qaeda and other terrorist networks. The playing field is not being leveled only in ways that draw in and super empower a whole new group of innovators. It's being leveled in a way that draws in and super empowers a whole new group of angry, frustrated, and humiliated men and women. ”(Friedman, 2005:6) At present the globalization trend is increasingly expanding.

The dependent relationship and mutual binding on all aspects of life between countries is increasing, in terms of economy, politics, culture, society. Thus any other form of closure of a nation will always go against the trend. However, in addition to the opportunities, globalization also brings about challenges to a newly opening country like Vietnam. It is for sure that the integration will bring about gain and loss. How to take advantage of opportunities, overcome challenges, protect national values and integrate with the international community is a difficult question.

Being integrated, not dissolved, is the criteria for a process of globalization and sustainable stability. REFERENCES 1. Friedman, T. (2005), The World is flat, London, Penguin Books. Retrieved May 15, 2010, from http://web. ntpu. edu. tw/~language/course/english/globalization. pdf. 2. Gidden, A. (2002), Runaway world : How globalization is reshaping our lives, London, Profile Books. 3. Held, D. (2000). A globalizing world? Culture, economics, politics, London, The Open University 4. Kelly,B. et Prokhovnik,R. (2000), Economic globalization?. In: Held,D. (ed. ), A globalizing world? Culture, economics, politics, London, The Open University. . Mackay, H. (2000),

The globalization of culture. In: Held,D. (ed. ), A globalizing world? Culture, economics, politics, London, The Open University. 6. Mann, F. (21 Febuary,2005). The Influence of Globalization. Global vision. Retrieved May 15, 2010, from www. globalenvision. org/print/196 7. Nguyen, A. (2010), Globalisation and the media: whose gains and whose losses? , International Communications lecture. The University off Stirling’s MSc in Media and Communication Management. 8. Nguyen,T. G. The role of State-run Company . Thong Luan. Retrieved May 15, 2010, from http://thongluan. org/vn/modules. php? name=News&file=article&sid=1298 9.

Parvis, L. F (2005), Understanding cultural diversity in today’s complex world, United States, Lulu Press. 10. Porter, K. (2009), Are globalization and Americanization synonymous? , Flatworld Communication Pratices in the New Information Age. Retrieved May 15, 2010, from http://flatworld. typepad. com/flatworld/2009/04/are-globalization-americanization-synonymous. html 11. Philippe, L. 2003, May 09. Cultural Globalization is not Americanization. Retrieved May 15, 2010, from http://www. philippelegrain. com/cultural-globalization-is-not-americanization/ 12. Van, V. T (March, 2006), About globalization, Fulbright Economic Teaching Program.