Globalization

Globalization means different things to different people. To CEOs of major corporations globalization means a wider market for their product and a more opportunity for growth and profit. To working people it might mean losing their job to a foreign country when their company decides to outsource this position or even their whole department to save money. To me it means watching the world get smaller and smaller as it gets a little bit easier everyday to connect with people across oceans and over mountains. America has been called the melting pot for the number of different cultures and background people who live here come from. I see globalization as a larger scale version of that. Fifty years ago McDonalds was something you could, for the most part, only find in America. Today you can find the golden arches in pretty much every major city through out the world. In soccer, as we have read in How Soccer Explains the World, it means watching the best players from each country play on the same club teams on a weekly basis. Another aspect of globalization is the slowly but surly standardization of countries, cities, and people. One day, and this day will most likely not be in our or our children’s lifetime, you may find yourself in London find it almost identical, except for major landmarks and geographical features, to say Beijing or Los Angeles. This may but a good thing in some way, such as perhaps a more stable globally-intertwined economy, but it could also mean the loss of national identity and cultural traditions. Regardless of weather you are in favor of globalization or not it’s coming fast and here to stay.