Globalization has been a decidedly mixed bag.
On the plus side, it’s managed to knit diverse people together economically and, to a lesser degree, culturally. But it’s also further divided others along religious, political, race, and class lines.
It’s introduced us to a myriad of once exotic consumer products at relatively cheaper prices (cheaper for many Westerners, that is). Globalization has also brought us fresh ideas and life choices that — while I certainly don’t agree with every new view put forth — has enormously enriched my own life experience.
On the negative side — and this is huge — it’s allowed multi-national corporate boards (and shareholders) to escape the full weight of responsibility for the enormous environmental degradation their decisions have produced in exploited regions thousands of miles distant from their posh corporate headquarters.
Also, let’s not forget the foreign workers, including child laborers, exploited by unscrupulous employers trying to satisfy their Western customers insatiable demands for rock bottom prices.
For the United States and other Western nations, globalization’s complex outcomes has produced still another key Gordian Knot dilemma. I’m referring to the vast numbers of desperate human refugees heading, most often without proper documentation, to the United States, Europe, Australia — and even to neighboring countries that may be only relatively better off.
The latter group includes situations American news media rarely cover. They include Nicaraguans fleeing to Costa Rica and South Africa’s burgeoning refugee population comprised of hopeful immigrants from a variety of sub-Saharan African nations.
Is it any surprise to anyone with a working knowledge of Homo sapiens that we demand globalization’s creature comforts without us wanting to deal with those actual Homo sapiens that globalization has negatively impacted.