Introduction
“Globalization is evidence since 1980s, with increasingly prominent in the world, a new phenomenon and that is the basic feature of the present era.”[1] Globalization is our one of the most current topic of discussion, whether you are willing or not, it will affect you on your daily life or you job. Under the influence of globalization, we will find that the world is really getting smaller, information about people, economy, and cultural aspects are moving toward globalization. How can we not chase it and shares with the crowd? It has brought us too much influence, which of course has its good and bad aspects in it, we cannot follow or duplicate, it must have its own characteristics, especially in the design, should kept in their original culture and finding a goal to move forward to.
Globalization is an objective development of human civilization process which results from the development of human society and civilization development. “The process of globalization has greatly driven the development of global social productive forces, promoted the progress of human civilization.”[2] People need to calm down and think about the process of globalization on human civilization that is positive and negative effects arising. Strength of Western civilization led to globalization, many developing countries and regions to enjoy the civilization of Western science and technology while faced with the loss of the local cultural characteristics, as well as the risk of national culture.
In addition to the positive effects of globalization, beyond the negative effects cannot be ignored, especially on the impact of Asian culture. Especially the impact on China even cannot be ignored. “Globalization has accelerated developed countries’ economic development, but behind the development, the problems are evident.”[3] For example, the rapid developments of rural areas have become urbanized, traditional architecture and culture under the influence of globalization because they have been making extensive damage instead of protecting them. A lot of traditional architecture has not been repaired due to their inexistence, those traditional cultural festivals have become very isolate is one example. “In China there are many cultural festivals, with the involvement of Western culture, festivals, more and more Chinese people enjoy Western holidays, such as Christmas, Valentine’s Day, while the traditional Chinese festivals such as the Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival are increasingly being left out.”[4] With less and less festive atmosphere, if it continues this way is bound to let go of traditional culture, it will be disappeared.
The process of globalization is attributed to by the growth of the developing countries. As a result, globalization has brought about both the opportunities and disadvantages to these states. Globalization is important because it leads to the measurable developments in the global economy. Some of these developments are evident in sectors like industry, economy, as well in the solutions to numerous social problems. “The most serious problem of all of the governments in the world is unemployment, which leads to poverty, social crime, illiteracy, can be easily clenched as most of the labor in developing countries is very cheap so the multinational companies always employ the worker in host countries.”[5]
In most cases, the coming of the multinational companies into a given signifies other more changes, for instance in religion, culture and lifestyle. Such platforms provide opportunities for growth in terms of living standards as well as embracing new civilizations. Globalization is also a major factor into enhancing competition among the different industries. On the other hand, it enhances cooperation between many markets in an attempt to acquire new knowledge and skills in order to keep up with new technologies. Many of the governments in third world countries have, in the recent past, been working hard to ensure that globalization plays a major role in their development. This can also be seen in the formation of a number of economic regional blocks as a way of attracting economic growth.
Latin America region
For the past few years, there has been an increasing sentiment of anti-globalization among the politicians and the public in different parts of the world. Some economists argue that globalization can come from the relaxation of trade barriers; something that has increased vulnerability and income inequality. Sreberny and Annabelle, 2006, p.604, for instance argue that certain policies and market-oriented reforms can only bring positive results if they are properly undertaken. On the contrary, in his view, early 2000s marked a period when liberalization policies were implemented in hurry; without undertaking economic analysis. Most of the Latin American governments have since announced the nationalization of the foreign investments, some have come up with price control measures, all efforts geared towards opening of their economies by increasing the amounts of import duties, increase in amount collected from export taxes and the removal of other barriers to businesses in their countries in the Latin America.
In this paper, I analyze the Latin Americas experience with economic reform during the last twenty years. To understand the reason why the Washington consensus have become unpopular in the region, then there is need for understanding the major two conclusions I came up with:
- The successive currency crisis that affected the Latin America during the last ten years, starting from 1990 was very expensive. One such crisis was the Mexican crisis of around 1995, the Brazilian of 2000 and argentine and Uruguayan of 2002. Many people from different countries associated these episodes with the market reform and the opening up of their economies. Understandably, this resulted in a significant decline in the political support for the neo liberal policies.
- The recent macroeconomic reforms that have included the reduction of external deficits as well as adopting flexible exchange rates have led to the reduction of the likeliness of serious currency crises in the future. However, in the future, it seems that there will be a certain rise in the degree of support towards globalization and market reforms within the Latin American region. On the same note, it is likely this may continue to perform poorly than other regions in terms of openness, institutional strengths and proper policies.
Long term growth has been very low in Latin America. The income per capita grew at an average of 1 per cent annually for those twenty years as compared to advanced countries where the per capita is 3%. Averagely, the sub-Saharan Africa did worse than Latin America with an average rate of economic expansion of 0.9%. Chile has been having a very unequal distribution of income for the last 20 years despite being the Latin Americas most successful economy. Historically, social conditions have also been poor in Latin America. For many years, the number of people leaving below poverty line has been very high and income distribution extremely unequal as compared to most of the developed countries. The modern economic history of the Latin America has been one of the modest growth macroeconomic crises inequality and poverty. As a result of higher commodity prices in the year 2005, the Latin American region experienced growth as witnessed in the per capita GDP improvement of around 3%.
Latin American Economic History
In around 1940s, some of the Latin American nations followed an economic strategy based on protectionist and industrialization led by the government where the state was directly involved in the economic activities. Around 1950s, the newly developed industrial sectors were very inefficient and it only required increasingly higher import barriers in the form of tariffs and quotas in order to survive. The protectionism led to the region’s currency growing stronger indicating reduction in the rate of inflation. In the late 1950s, most nations in the Latin America experienced persistent poverty and inequality between the urban and rural areas.
Besides, the globalization process in the Latin America led to the increase in the population in most of the countries. This contributed to frustrations and subjected the people in these countries to very bad social conditions. They suffered brutality caused as a result of the authoritative and dictatorial regimes. In the year 1952, the democratically elected president of the southern part of Rio implemented the agrarian reform which ensured that the land holdings are redistributed. This helped the poor citizens in these regions to at least get some justice. However, this was just in the short run because of the opposition he got from the US government. The criticism was attributed to by the rejection was facing from some of the landowners in the region.
Some of the countries in the Latin America shared two major characteristics which included:
- Their degree of openness in both the goods and financial claims was very low as compared to other countries in the developed countries. Some of the policies that were implemented in the late 1930s to encourage industrialization. Such policies led to the promotion of the domestic manufacturing sector that provided a false sense of strengthened local currency. In effect, it was difficult to conduct export business, encouraging economic blocs that seemed isolated. With time, Latin American led in terms of the protection of the manufacturing goods. Such attempts in other parts of the world, especially in agriculture, failed to bare the intended fruits.
- Latin America, in early 70s had already been marked as a region with the highest disparity when it comes to the income distribution. This, like in other countries came from the failed improvement in the social conditions as well as the income of the common people.
Oil Shocks and Debt Crisis
Numerous changes experienced by the Latin America in the late 20th century were majorly as a result of the oil price shocks in the 1970s. The oil price changes necessitated ambitious plans by the oil exporters to work towards spearheading industrialization. The problem arose from the fact that most of the large infrastructural projects initiated at the time were led by the public sector, using very inefficient methods of implementations. In fact, investment projects initiated were very large and did not guarantee any returns in the long run. Governments from the oil exporting countries had no option but to borrow from other countries in order to balance the oil shocks, leading to high debt to them.
On the other hand, oil importing countries also, in an attempt to cushion them against, resorted to massive borrowing from foreign governments. This trend led to very huge debts that became unsustainable, both to the oil importers and the exporters. The oil shock of 1973 led to the instability of some of the countries that seemed stable previously, especially in Central America. Most of these countries increased their reliance on the monetary expansion in order to achieve macroeconomic stability of their government operations. This explains the increase in the rate of inflation, lack of competitiveness in the export market and the reduction in the international reserves on a global scale. To most of the affected countries, the best way out the problem was to put in place a number of controls towards establishing stable capital.
Market Reforms, Freer Trade and the “Washington Consensus”
With the passing years, economies within Latin America became more dysfunctional, requiring urgent solution. It was apparent that the best way out would require a common effort by the Latin American governments and other stakeholders like lenders and the international multilateral institutions. Efforts bore fruit in 1989 with an initiative known as “Brady Plan” that required different governments to adopt voluntary debt reduction. Governments with old non-performing bank debt were allowed to make exchanges with new long-term bonds with a lower face value. Of course, commitment was a major requirement for all Latin American countries who wanted to participate in the process. At the time, Mexico and Costa Rica were some of the first countries to take advantage of the process in 1989, followed by Venezuela, Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil. It was difficult to agree on the details of Brady Plan, leading to numerous negotiation and consultation meetings. It was difficult make a negotiation with a country like Mexico that had the largest amount of debt in the region.
Wild Tales
Different Cultural in the world’s current characteristics of as exchange and dialogue, if under the influence of globalization with all the same culture, this world would be impossible to develop, and cultural needs of a variety of colors, guiding people’s lives in interior design course, we should keep this point of view, design changes out life, orientation of people, therefore I think that maintaining our own cultural characteristics, in the interior design is also very important.
“Many people have realized that globalization has brought in many unfavorable factors, and they have already begun to protect those cultural heritages.”[6] But as a major power, the Eastern China was lagging behind to many Western. They have long been protecting those old buildings. In addition to those countries we can also see the Russian countryside, and in many rural areas, we do not see a lot of modern architecture being preserved, many places are not very much affected by globalization. This is what many countries would need to learn.
The process of globalization was marred with much opposition which led to civil wars in different regions of the world. During the war, different countries drafted different techniques to help them win the war. This included the introduction of some dangerous weapons which had serious impacts to human health and the environment.
A number of toxic chemical wastes are thrown without proper management and disposal practices, something that has led to the increase in the amount of weeds and plants on the earth surface. The major problem from such pollution comes from the interference of the genetic makeup of plant species, something that has led to the increased pressure on land resources. Plastics are a major challenge in the world today. This comes from the many studies that find plastic as composed of the non-biodegradable material that are also toxic in nature. In developing countries, the use of plastics has increased because of cheap packaging need, leading to serious environmental pollution. Another globalization challenge comes in the interference of the natural resources. For instance, many of the World Mountains are cut in order to make way for underground railway tunnels and highways that connect different regions of the world. Vast barren lands have been encroached upon to pave way for new buildings. As much as people may rejoice and marvel at such developments, there will be a great effect on the natural resources, in the long run.
Some of the challenges brought about by globalization may not be reversed. The only way possible is to come up with mechanisms that check the extent of the effect of such activities to the environment. According to some scholars, globalization, in itself stands to provide the answer towards coming up with environmental-friendly solutions. This can be realized from the private sector leading the way towards ensuring that those environment- friendly policies are followed. When they lead the way, other sectors and globalization players will easily join in the same quest of making the environment safer for future prosperity.
Putting effort towards harmony between people and environment will help in developing a common goal towards success. It is true that survival of human only depends on the environment, meaning that we can no longer ignore what human activities have brought about. A number of debates exist on environmental issues and globalization; however, it will be important to come up with policies that will ensure effectiveness in terms of implantation. Representatives of the people must hold dear environmental issues in light to globalization in order to prevent the negative effects. We hope this article helped you in understanding globalization and its impact on the environment and the importance of taking concrete actions against it.
Salt
“It is the fourteenth century and one of the most apocalyptic events in human history is set to occur – the coming of the Black Death.”[7] History teaches us that a third of Europe’s population was destroyed. This is a look at the history that could have been: a history that stretches across centuries, a history that sees dynasties and nations rise and crumble, a history that spans horrible famine and magnificent innovation.
Conclusion
“Interior design development to a variety of styles has been the coexistence of diverse age; the 21st century interior design will be in the context of globalization, with a variety of styles.”[8] Many new ideas will come in at the same time, consumers are able to accept the different style, people will accept a variety of angles comprehensive design of various forms and styles, not just understand the simple meaning of a simplification. To truly comprehend the fine traditional culture of their own, only through the fusion of globalization, culture and design to compare the essence of the approach to international action, to give the design with a true national significance and quality. We will truly grasp the so-called “The more national, the more global” that we all know the profound meaning of the design concept. From the international point of view, understanding again, emphasized the concept of nation in the impact of globalization, but also to seek common ground while reserving differences, develop and retain something of national culture
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[1] Connell, Robert William. “Masculinities and globalization.” Men and masculinities 1, no. (1998): 3-23.
[2] Connell, Robert William. “Masculinities and globalization.” Men and masculinities 1, no. 1 (1998): 3-23.
[3] Dyreson, Mark. “Globalizing the nation-making process: Modern sport in world history.” The International Journal of the History of Sport 20, no. 1 (2003): 91-106.
[4] Berger, Peter L., and Samuel P. Huntington. Many globalizations: Cultural diversity in the contemporary world. Oxford University Press, USA, 2002.
[5] Berger, Peter L., and Samuel P. Huntington. Many globalizations: Cultural diversity in the contemporary world. Oxford University Press, USA, 2002.
[6] Hansen, Karen Tranberg. “The world in dress: Anthropological perspectives on clothing, fashion, and culture.” Annual Review of Anthropology (2004): 369-392.
[7] Hansen, Karen Tranberg. “The world in dress: Anthropological perspectives on clothing, fashion, and culture.” Annual Review of Anthropology (2004): 369-392.
[8] Sreberny, Annabelle. “The global and the local in international communications.” Media and Cultural Studies (2006): 604.