B. Now read the text and check if your guesses were right

Globalization is a process of interaction and integration among the people, companies, and governments of different nations, a process driven by international trade and investment and aided by information technology. This process has effects on the environment, on culture, on political systems, on economic development and prosperity, and on human physical well-being in societies around the world.

Policy and technological developments of the past few decades have encouraged increases in cross-border trade, investment, and migration so large that many observers believe the world has entered a qualitatively new phase in its economic development. Since 1950, for example, the volume of world trade has increased by 20 times, and from just 1997 to 1999 flows of foreign investment nearly doubled, from $468 billion to $827 billion. Distinguishing this current wave of globalization from earlier ones, author Thomas Friedman has said that today globalization is “farther, faster, cheaper, and deeper.”

This current wave of globalization has been driven by policies that have opened economies domestically and internationally. In the years since the Second World War, and especially during the past two decades, many governments have adopted free-market economic systems, vastly increasing their own productive potential and creating myriad new opportunities for international trade and investment. Governments also have negotiated dramatic reductions in barriers to commerce and have established international agreements to promote trade in goods, services, and investment. Taking advantage of new opportunities in foreign markets, corporations have built foreign factories and established production and marketing arrangements with foreign partners. A defining feature of globalization, therefore, is an international industrial and financial business structure.

Technology has been the other principal driver of globalization. Advances in information technology, in particular, have dramatically transformed economic life. Information technologies have given all sorts of individual economic actors - consumers, investors, businesses - valuable new tools for identifying and finding economic opportunities, including faster and more informed analyses of economic trends around the world, easy transfers of assets, and collaboration with a great number of partners.

Globalization is deeply controversial, however. Proponents of globalization argue that it allows poor countries and their citizens to develop economically and raise their standards of living, while opponents of globalization claim that the creation of an unfettered international free market has benefited multinational corporations in the Western world at the expense of local enterprises, local cultures, and common people. Resistance to globalization has therefore taken shape both at a popular and at a governmental level as people and governments try to manage the flow of capital, labor, goods, and ideas that constitute the current wave of globalization.

C. Fill in the words from the box.

foreign markets globalization benefits

international agreements world trade technology

… is a process in which economic events in one place affect almost all other places. The economists point out increased volumes of … The drivers of the globalization are policies and … . … have removed trade barriers between countries. The advantage of this process is that the access to … is provided. The negative point of the globalization process is that there are more … for multinational corporations.

D. Match the words from the text with their corresponding definitions.

corporation	the process of making something such as a business operate in a lot of different countries all around the world, or the result of this
free market	a big company or a group of companies acting together as a single organization
benefit	the activity of buying, selling, or exchanging goods between countries
to develop	an economic system in which prices are not controlled by the government
international	affecting or including the whole world
globalization	an advantage, improvement, or help that you get from something
trade	to grow or change into something bigger, stronger, or more advanced, or to make someone or something do this
integration	to help something to develop or increase
to promote	the combining of two or more things so that they work together effectively

E. In pairs, make a list of what you think the principal advantages or disadvantages of globalization are.

Listening: For and against globalization

(Market Leader, Intermediate Business English CB by D. Cotton, Unit 1)

Over to you

Conduct some research into either the costs or the benefits of globalization. You should aim to give a presentation lasting approximately 15 minutes outlining your case. At the end of the presentation, you should be prepared to take 10 minutes of questions from your 'audience' on the issues you have raised in your presentation.

The 'opposition' will present their case in a similar manner. At the end of the exercise, you will be asked to write a short 500 word report on whether, and how, globalization should or can be 'managed'. The intention of the report is to get you to write a concise summary of the key issues facing the planet as globalization takes a further hold. You will be raising the key issues that face the authorities rather than providing any form of definitive answer. For example, you may feel that a key way of solving many of the problems is to further extend the movement towards freeing up trade. At this level, how that may be done is another matter!

Module 2 International trade

Starting up

v Think of some things you own (e.g. shoes, clothes, car and etc.). Which are imported? Where were they made?

v Try to recall the meals you’ve eaten in the last 24 hours. How much of the food came from abroad?

v What are your country’s major imports and exports?

v Do you think products made in your country are better than products made in other countries?

v Can you even imagine living in a country that did not import anything, where only locally produced food and textiles and products were available?

Reading: Protectionism and free trade