homework #2

Joy Marie Prior
14 January 2009
Sociology 112
Section 4
Homework #2
Question #2
Quickly I have short question of my own: there was no how to section? While I was reading I kept on expecting to find this HOW TO READ A GRAPH passage, but it did not exist. I am suppose to just apply what I learned in class the other day, and think of twenty to twenty five things that I know about the graph. If I just look at the bar graph on the page should I be able to learn all of the information that the paragraph explains. I feel like I have a basic understanding of how to read a graph, but I would really appreciate going through this in class so that I know exactly HOW TO READ A GRAPH. The few minutes that we talked about it the other day really helped me, but I would just like a refresher course. Thank you.
Globalization has changed the economies of countries such as Mexico, and the United States. The effect of globalization on workers has developed international competition for job positions such as in the case of India and the United States. Eventually globalization will lead to greater prosperity for the world as a whole because of the continual competition between nations, expanding technologies, and by enriching cultural awareness through international communication.
Such as in the examples used in Worlds Apart Social Inequalities in a Global Economy many countries now have international based economical trade. For example many of Mexico’s companies are owned by people living in other countries, but they have their factories in Mexico and pay Mexican labor to do the manual labor. The companies given as examples were Nissan, Ford, Volkswagen, and General Electric. All of the companies I recognize, because all of them originated and are based in America. From this it is obvious that the American economy is effected by Mexico, and it’s economy. Many of the United States major companies have factories in Mexico, and their labor is in another country.
Workers have been affected by globalization because employment has become international. Such as in the case of Indian and United States engenderers modern technology has allowed for companies to communicate and effectively hire workers internationally. Outsourcing is describes what companies do when they hire workers from outside of their own country to work for them. In India engineering rates are around $12 an hour. When companies compare those figures to the United States $50 to $70 an hour wage there is an obvious difference. Not only is there a difference in the pay, but companies are able to hire workers in India. Technology enables communication, and someone can hire an engineer specifically in this case from India to work for a project in the America. The compaction for that job position is international, and that makes it so that engineers in America are competing against engineers in India.
Just like the economical systems before it globalization will eventually dissipate to a more advanced economical system, because the “first world” countries can not depend on “third world” county labor forever simply because laws that control international trade will allow countries to progress and emerge into the “modern” world. The case of Mexico this ideal. Several years ago Mexico was the 26th largest economy, and currently it is the 8th largest economy in the world. What made the difference? Well shortly after the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) an agreement that started North American free trade the Mexican economy grow at an rate of 4% and 5%. Although employment has increased in Mexico the real wage has declined by an estimated 20%. Not to mention the 40% of the total Mexican workforce that are considered the “truly Poor” and they have to compete with cheap United States and South American products, often trying to sale the “pirated” versions of the American and South American products. Although there has been a lot of development in Mexico because of the economical system there are many people who suffer, starve, and are living on the streets in poverty. Taking a Marx idea it is the system that has created this impoverished class. On the other hand functionalist believe this class will drive the economy even further, and the impoverished will want to get out of poverty enough to figure out how to get to the top, and become successful. Either perspective results with globalization ending. If you take the Marx ideal logy then the middle class will dissipate, and a selected upper class will rule the entire world with complete control over the economy of every country. This would create more of a kingdom and servant system, or at least that is what I would compare it to in my mind. I don’t know if that is what globalization is suppose to be? It sounds more like specific countries will control the economies, but I think that because of the international availability of cheep labor a select few people would gain power. That is kept in the Marx theory. On the other hand if the lower classes do get feed up with the poverty they will revolt against the upper class, or join the upper class and bring their ideas and beliefs into the ruling and upper class. History demonstrates this from the simple turning point one book made; Smith’s book about the invisible hand altered the way economies function forever. All it takes is one person with the ability to express their revolutionary ideals to emerge from a lower class, or any class for that manner, and the history of the world changes. Either way I view globalization as another step in the worlds evolving economy. I think that continuation of globalization as it is today will lead to greater poverty, and that is why it will eventually dissipate.