The Idea Of Progress

THE IDEA OF PROGRESS

Intro:

I’m going to talk about the idea of progress. First of all, I would like to give a definition of this notion.

The idea of progress can be defined as an improvement, a development or a change – a technical, scientific or social advance which contributes to making the world a better place.

Examples can be:

-Scientific Progress (Medical advances, cures for illnesses…)

-Technological Progress

-Advances in communication (the internet, social media, mobile phones…)

But also:

Women’s rights, human rights, minority rights…

The idea of liberty, freedom, democracy…

In order to illustrate this notion I have chosen to talk about globalization and the impact it has on our society.

Globalization is a new economic term, which refers to the fact that all countries are connected. It is the process of international integration arising from the interchange of world views, products, ideas and other aspects of culture. But is globalization really a progress?

I-The advantages of globalization

II-The dark side of globalization : disadvantages

I-The advantages of globalization

First, as we saw in the document « advantages and disadvantages of globalisation », globalization has many advantages

-Intergration of markets: markets are interlinked

-Cheaper products for consumers and greater choice of products

-Leads to outsourcing in some cases which can lead to job loses(Moving call centers for India for instance).

-Lowering of internatinal bariers : Now the European Union ca trade with ASEAN and NAFTA.

-Providing jobs in LEDCs and help develop their economy

-Standardisation of products: the same products can be seen in some many places

-Promotes understanding and goodwill among different countries

-Contributes to the spread of new technologies

-Helps reduce international poverty with a sustained fall in the umber of people living in poverty (defined as people living on less than 1$ a day)

The advantages of globalization are that it helps spread progress around the world and increases progress in general.

But progress can also generate serious consequences.

II-The dark side of globalization

-globalised production

First, globalized production can engendrate unacceptable work conditions for workers:

For example, we saw in the document «Behind the swoosh » that Nike, a famous US

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