Ethics in globalization

Ethics in Globalization :

Good afternoon everyone… (présentation de toi-même+sujet+sommaire)

I-Globalization:

To better understand what is the globalization, we are gonna do a little bit of history. Globalization goes back to the great maritime expeditions of the fifteenth and sixteenth century that allowed the creation of colonial empires.

The term "globalization" appeared later and designated the extension of industrial markets at the level of geopolitical blocs at the time of the Cold-War.

Nowadays, Globalization term is use to talk about economic globalization. Economic globalization refers to the convergence of markets in the single market, to a new configuration of the economy and a global integration with the relocation of firms.

In short, globalization is the expansion of free trade in a perspective of production and diffusion without borders.

Globalization consists of 5 main processes or characteristics:

• The first one is the globalization of information with the introduction of Internet at the beginning of the century, it allows the globalization to impact individuals as well as states or companies all around the world.
• There is also the internationalization of economies with the opening of international trade, World Trade Organisation (WTO), this refers to the import and export of goods or products.
• In third, Direct investments abroad, it’s a capital commitment made in order to acquire a lasting interest in a company business operating abroad and it allows the companies to reinvest profits through the subsidiary or carry out operations between parent company and subsidiaries for example.
• In fourth the offshoring, Offshoring refers to the relocation of the service or production activities of some companies to low-wage countries.
• And finally, the fifth point is the International finance which consists of an International Monetary System (IMS), basically it refers to how and at what price the currencies are exchanged between them.

So now that we have talked a bit about globalization and its characteristics, we are going to ask what are the consequences and the bad sides of this phenomenon on ethics?

II- Consequences on Ethics:

Globalization has many benefits for rich countries, like for example the access to a wider range of goods at a lower price for customers than if they were made in the country itself. But this first benefits also causes a big problem at the level of Ethics, indeed to have products at lower prices, the companies relocate their production activities to other countries which consequently creates redundancies or layoffs and unemployment in countries where the average salary is quite high.

As an example of this first problem, we can talk about Whirlpool company, which is number two in the world's electrical appliances, has relocated in 2017, several production sites from France to Poland in Lodz which led to the dismissal of almost 300 people. There are many companies that did the same thing like Renault, the PSA group…which created big waves of unemployment in France. According to the newspaper “Le Figaro”, Offshoring or relocations destroys 36,000 jobs a year over the period between 2000 and 2005.

But unfortunately, the biggest ethical problems of globalization are not the unemployment in rich countries. The main problems concern the poorer countries and the producing countries with 2 major ethical considerations

Regarding the growth of inequalities, even if the globalization has helped lift hundreds of millions of people above the poverty line, it has contributed directly to increase inequalities within nations. In particular, we can talk about many countries that are on the margins of globalization like for example many countries in Africa or Asia which struggle to grow. These countries generally experience great poverty because of their lack of trade openness, their isolation or their political situations.

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