Globalisation And Regionalisation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Globalisation And Regionalisation - Essay Example sequent to the implementation of the neo-liberal economic agenda upon the global economy, implying the removal of barriers to trade and most forms of protectionism, 90% of the global gross domestic product was owned and controlled by just under 20% of the Norths citizens, while 20% of the Souths citizens controlled and owned under 1% of the global GDP (Why the World, 2005). In addition to that, and as Longsworth (1999) reports, the feature wealth of Microsofts three top executives exceeds the combined wealth of fifty LDCs. Indeed, globalisation has substantially and dangerously expanded the gap between the haves and the have-nots, as testify through the fact that the income gap between the fifth of the worlds people living in the richest countries and the fifth in the poorest was 301 in 1960, 601 in 1990,and jumped to 741 in 1997 (Indonesias despair,2000). sparing statistics establish globalisation as an instrument for the transfer ence of wealth and resources from the South to the north, from the poor to the rich and not, as its proponents have claimed a strategy for the elimination of poverty and underdevelopment. The means by which globalisation transfers wealth and resources from the have-nots to the haves atomic number 18, at bottom the context of any discussion on regionalization versus globalisation, extremely informative. Globalisation, as earlier stated, has imposed neo-liberal economic agendas upon subject field economies, dictating the virtual withdrawal of states from their domestic economies and constraining their powers to exercise protectionism, if only to allow their infant industries the space and snip to grow and stabilize. As Schwam-Baird (2003) writes, insofar as both developing and single national economies are concerned, the consequences are potentially... The United States, both fuelled and fortified by its multinationals has emerged, not only as the worlds only superpower just as a n unequaled and unmatched force. More importantly, it is a force which is determined to overwhelm and consume new(prenominal) nations. Single economies, irrespective of their individual strength, cannot resist this power/force alone but can as a collectivity. Indeed, they can should they respond through the formation of their own empire, a union of nations which, besides universe capable of surviving globalization, possibly thriving under it, can emerge as a counterforce to the American empire. Consequently, from this interpretive perspective, not only is regionalization a strategy for survival under, and resistance to, globalization but it is, potentially, a project for the resistance of the American Empire through the recreation of the bipolar world order. In the final analysis, regionalization is, quite incontrovertibly, a counterforce to globalization, with it being quite valid to argue that, as a phenomenon, it rose in direct response to globalization. This should hardly be surprising considering the fact that globalization functions as a rattling real threat, not only to the economic survival, political independence and national sovereignty of the nations of the South but, to the countries of the North. Regionalisation, as such, emerges as a strategy for the pooling of national resources and unifying for the maximisation of strength and, hence, capacity to resist and survive.