Globalization Paper

The governments of the world have been on a journey to find a way to bring peace and prosperity to everyone. In their quest they formed the I.M.F, or the International Monetary Fund, to help struggling countries with their money issues. This movement was put forth to further globalization, the theory of integrated markets, which is a hot debate with many countries. This is because while globalization has brought many benefits to some countries and it has left others in decay.

The I.M.F on its web page describes some of the benefits and problems of globalization, showing they are not ignoring the negative side effects. Although this is true they definitely seem to focus more on the positive aspects of globalization. One thing they don't discuss nearly as much as they should is free trade. Free trade is trade that is not hindered by tariffs and other rules, letting people trade as they please. Neoliberalists fight for free trade arguing that it is going to save the world. The protectionists fight Neoliberalists claiming that if we depend on others and something goes wrong it could destroy countries and the economy. Something that the I.M.F does say on their website is that globalization is the key to economic integration and development of the world. Not only that but the poorer countries would then begin "getting access to more capital flows, technology, cheaper imports, and larger exports". They also discussed how medical advances and improved living increased life expectancies noticeably around the world. They make globalization sound great, but don't nearly focus nearly as much on the downside. This downside they mention on their page includes an "increase in inequality within and between nations" and that it "threatens employment and living standards". They also state the imposing fact that the gap between the rich countries and the poor has steadily increased over the past century. They called it an "imbalance" like it's a math problem. And as for the medical advances they spoke about, they also say that Africa has not seen this advancement and has not increased life expectancy because of AIDs. It is effects like these that have brought on negative views of globalization.

James Wolfensohn, the president of the World Bank, has very different thoughts than the I.M.F on globalization. On September 30, 2002 he wrote an article on "How Rich Countries Keep the Rest of the World in Poverty". In this article Wolfensohn said numerous things. One thing he said was that the rich countries could help against the negative effects by, "reducing tariffs, subsidies, capricious product standards, protectionist anti-dumping actions and other impediments to developing countries efforts to compete in global markets". Wolfensohn goes on to explain that the larger income countries are making problems because they are selling their surplus agriculture with subsidies and poor countries are buying them, furthering them into poverty. A statistic that Wolfensohn uses to prove this is that "Agricultural subsidies in rich countries of about $350 billion a year - nearly $1 billion per day undercut poor farmers in developing countries. These subsidies, which go mainly to large agribusiness corporations, are seven times the $50 billion that these countries provide annually in foreign aid". Another example that Wolfensohn uses is that the sugar prices