Who have been the principal winners and losers from globalisation?
Globalization affects everyone, whether intended, directly or otherwise; it has gradually increased its presence in our daily lives. In this essay, I will point out who are the ones benefited and the ones injured from it by breaking down the question in four broad aspects: economic, political, socio-cultural and environmental. Seemingly, I will analyse the causals for this particular outcomes and distributions that indicate that globalization is creating further divergence in our world increasingly fragmented and unequal. The globalization winners – predominantly developed countries, the top 1% wealthiest demographic segments, transnational companies (TNC’s), supranational organizations amongst others – deeply embedded in the neoliberal belief that markets are the answer to global growth through trade, fostered by incentives such as low tariffs and interest rates and minimal government intervention find themselves unattached to the markedly less benefited, the losers– developing countries, especially their poorest demographic segments, the low-skilled low-wage percentage of workforce, the unemployed, the minorities, women amongst others – who in turn find themselves trapped in this zero-sum cycle where one either leads globalization or follows it – at risk of falling behind – but not either.
Globalization, as most concepts in IPE and other social sciences, is a highly contested concept and encompasses a wide range of topics such as money, ideas, cultures, etc. However for the purposes of this essay we will refer to the degree of countries’ interconnectedness; more specifically we will narrow it to ‘the closer economic integration of the countries of the world through an increased flow of goods and services, capital and even labour’.
Economically, we can clearly distinguish the winners and losers of