Globalization

I was recently going through an excellent article on "Globalization"  titled "The Dark Side of Globalization" by Jorge Heine and Ramesh Thakur and some of the critical points mentioned in the article are highlighted below:

1. Although we may not have yet reached the end of history globalization has brought us to the end of geography as we know it. The compression of time and space triggered by the third industrial revolution, since the 1980s has fundamentally changed the way we interact with our environment.
2. Globalization has been in the nature of a double edged weapon. While on the one hand it has ushered in an era of prosperity leading to a rise in the overall standards of living based on cross border exchange of goods, services, capital, technology, ideas, information, legal systems and people on the other hand it has also led to the rise of corporate imperialism that plunders and profiteers riding on the back of rampant consumerism.
3. Globalization is not uncontrolled. The movement of people is highly restricted and the flow of capital asymmetric. Overseas development assistance from rich to poor countries has totalled $50-80 billion per year while in the same period, every year, $500-800 billion of illegal funds have been sent from poor to rich countries.
4. The benefits and costs of linking and de-linking are unequally distributed. While industrialized countries are largely interdependent developing countries are largely independent of each other in their economic relations and further the latter are largely dependent on industrialized countries.
5. There is a skewed distribution of income an among and within statesd assets with less number of people controlling more. This has implications for social and political stability among and within states.
6. Interdependence amongst unequals translates into dependence of some on international markets which function under the dominance of others as proved by the global financial crisis which severely impinged upon the economic sovereignty of the developing nations.     

To know more read on the complete book - The Dark Side of Globalization, UNU Press, 2011.