Being only a concept in the 20th century, the process of globalization has swept the entire world by 2000s and is taking an increasingly fast pace at present. Despite its obvious benefits, globalization has also had a couple of negative effects on the economy, politics and social life of the United States, which calls for the re-evaluation of its impact in the aforementioned spheres.
Although globalization has a range of adverse impacts on the United States, including the drop in average wages, the significant increase in the profits of private entrepreneurships allows for assuming that globalization will fuel the state economy significantly.
On the one hand, the use of globalization as a key tool in business expansion has a vast negative effect on the wellbeing of employees in general and workers in particular. According to the statistical data provided by the BBC News, the U.S. have witnessed a 4% drop in the national average of workers’ wages over the past two decades since the development of the globalization concept (). As the chart below shows, these alterations cannot be considered consistent, yet display a rather disturbing tendency (Table 1).
On the other hand, the globalization process has created the premises for the American private entrepreneurship to make a major foot forward as far as the international cooperation is concerned.
First and most obvious, the creation of the international job market and the possibility for organizations to employ highly qualified staff from all over the world deserves to be mentioned: “England’s professional soccer league (Premiership) includes players from about 70 countries, which helps to improve the caliber of play and increase the TV fan base outside England” (Daniels, Radebaugh and Sullivan 2).
Apart from affecting the economic life of the United States in a rather dubious manner, globalization also alters the environmental and social landscape of America. According to the Happy Index data, the 2015 index of the United States makes 37.3 (NEF “The Happy Planet Index” Table 1), which is a significant downgrade compared to the 2007 rates (64.0 (NEF “The Happy Planet Index: 2012 Report” 14).
The specified alterations in the economic wellbeing, life expectancy and ecological safety of the U.S. residents should be attributed to the increase in the globalization pace, seeing that the latter has had a major impact on the economic, social and political processes of the states involved (ETH “KOF Index of Globalization 2013” para. 1).
Seeing that the USA landed at the 27th position in 2013, the country must redefine its priorities in terms of the globalization process and enhance economic security of workers (ETH “KOF Index of Globalization 2013 Slight Recovery of Economic Globalization” 2).
It should be noted, though, that the impact of the specified factors may trigger a different effect in other states. For instance, a rapid and quite impressive resurgence of the Indian economy (Schifferes para. 31–33) makes globalization an essential element of the Indian progress. Because of the transformation of the state economy and the change in the very concept of entrepreneurship, the state has witnessed a major vivification of business and managed to become a part of the global market.
While claiming that globalization has had a solely positive effect on the U.S. economy so far would be wrong, seeing that the state economy has witnessed a major drop in the average wages of workers, the benefits of globalization as a tool for economic expansion and growth of private organizations is still beyond any reasonable doubt.
Therefore, the United States authorities will have to explore the advantages that globalization offers in terms of trade and service sector. Though obviously having its problems, globalization still remains a promising concept that may be used to the advantage of the U.S. economy.
Works Cited
Daniels, John D., Lee H. Radebaugh and Daniel P. Sullivan. “Globalization and International Business.” International Business: Environments and Operations. 13th ed. Ed. John D. Daniels, Lee H. Radebaugh, Daniel P. Sullivan. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2011. 1–44. Print.
ETH. “KOF Index of Globalization 2013 Slight Recovery of Economic Globalization.” KOF Swiss Economic Institute. 2013.
—. “KOF Index of Globalization.” KOF Swiss Economic Institute. 2015. Web.
NEF. “Happy Planet Index.” HPI. 2015. Web.
—. “The Happy Planet Index: 2012 Report.” 2012. Web.
Schifferes, Steve. “Globalisation Shakes the World.” BBC News. 2007.