Seven Positives of Globalization

Globalization increases resource availability.
Globalization leads to improved efficiency, increasing the ability for people to acquire more goods. The founding principle of economics is that collaboration and specializations increases the amount of goods and services produced. Therefore, individuals form societies and specialize within those societies. This significantly increases the production possibility curve. In the same way, globalization allows countries or societies to specialize, increasing the production possibility curve. This provides two important opportunities for consumers. First, specialization increases the quality of goods and services produced, which allows consumers to make the best possible choice. Second, the increased market competition and innovative activities reduces prices for consumers. The breaking down of trade barriers can increase the amount of specialization, which increases the production possibility curve.

Globalization reduces poverty.
In many developing nations there is a lack of infrastructure, education, human capital and the ability to take the steps necessary to secure the aforementioned necessities. When multinational firms provided citizens of developing nations with jobs they are providing a stepping block for the impoverished masses. There is a reason that these individuals take low paying jobs: because all other opportunities offer much less in terms of total benefits. In every case a low paying job is better than joblessness and starvation. In addition to providing a means of subsistence these jobs can create a ladder of opportunity for the individuals who may be able to save some of their income in order to get an education or allow their children to go to school and become educated. In every country where multinational corporations have provided jobs the average income level has gone significantly up and many of the poor eventually rise out of poverty.

Globalization helps the environment.
Developing economies are significantly less efficient, at producing goods and services, than developed economies. This means that developing economies waste a significant amount of resources and damage the environment to a greater extent than if they were developed counties. Additionally, as members of the society become more affluent they are able to focus more of their time and resources on social causes, such as protecting the environment. As already stated globalization reduces poverty, from which it can be concluded that members of the society are in a better position to focus on the protection of the environment.

Globalization reduces ethnic tensions
Inherently with globalization ethnic groups that once may have never interacted are forced to conduct business and trade together. This can lead to a reduction in ethnic tensions as groups who once saw each other as competitors see the ’others’ as a valuable trading partners. Understanding that other nations are friends and not enemies can bring about increased communication with, and acceptance of, other cultures. This can directly reduce tensions and increase multiculturalism.


Globalization reduces the change of war.
Similar to the way globalization reduces ethnic tensions, globalization reduces the change of war. In a case of international differences the interdependence of nations reduces the change of war because going to war with one nation could be an act of economic suicide. Case to point, despite any tensions China and the United States might have with each other each nation has a direct economic dependence on the other and so could not risk destroying its relation through direct or indirect conflict. In this way Globalization reduces the chance of war and saves lives.

Globalization leads to freedom of speech and the protection of human rights.
As nations become more economically developed international scrutiny of their governments’ actions increases and it becomes increasingly hard to violate human rights. Also, as individuals increase their income and education they begin to demand increasing freedom of speech and individual privacy rights. These demands, combined with the increasing international security, leads to pressure on the regime to change their policies to grant more rights and freedoms.

Globalization increases knowledge.
It is known facts that as nations become more developed the number of educated individuals in the nation increases. Because it has already be shown how globalization allows for specializations, which increases the level of income of the nation, it can be assumed that globalization increase the number of educated individuals. These individuals can increase the amount of research and development, the level of entrepreneurship and the quality of the social capital. Overall, it can be seen that because globalization increases the level of national income it also increase the amount of knowledge.

Self-Defense

This column was originally written for the Hatchet, but they decided not to print it because they do not want to publish opinions dealing with national/international events.

Fifteen seconds. That’s how long the residents of Sderot, Israel, have to find shelter between the time when a siren announces, “Code Red” and the time a rocket – or a rocket barrage – hits their city. For years, this has been happening daily in Sderot and other communities in Israel’s southern region, with only a few short lulls in between. Some days, the siren would sound only a couple times; others, eight to ten.

Imagine living like that for many years – in a democratic country. Imagine your country’s sovereignty and your security being regularly violated by terrorists. Imagine the effect on your physical, material and mental wellbeing if your city was constantly attacked with rocket barrages that were meant to terrorize, destroy and kill. What would you expect of your democratically-elected government?

No sane person enjoys war. During this latest conflict, I tried to keep in touch with my anxious family and friends in Israel. My cousins, who live in the coastal city of Ashdod, were directly affected by Hamas’ longer-range rockets. Ironically, the Palestinian terrorist group had stockpiled these rockets during the six-month ceasefire that had existed between it and Israel, a ceasefire which nevertheless saw occasional rocket salvos by Hamas and its allies.

Over the past couple weeks, my cousins in Ashdod experienced a taste of what Sderot residents had been going through for years. About two times every day, residents of the city would hear sirens and would have to run for shelter. Since Ashdod is farther than Sderot from the border with Gaza, residents had more time to hide before the rockets hit: 45 seconds. The tension was high, and the streets were almost completely empty of pedestrians. My relatives told me the story of one woman who, unable to find a bomb shelter in time, hid at a bus stop. Seconds later, a missile slammed into the platform, killing her.

I also spoke with my other cousins who live outside of Tel Aviv, the largest metropolitan area in Israel, which is 20 miles north of Ashdod and out of range of the Hamas rocket danger zone. At the time of writing, the danger zone posed a threat to around 1 million Israelis. These cousins, like many Israelis, were constantly glued to the news. Life can be tense when you live in a country that experiences war all too often.

These people – my relatives and other ordinary Israelis – did not enjoy war. They sat and watched worriedly for developments, or ran into bomb shelters after hearing a siren. But one thing could confidently be said: most of them supported their government’s decision to try to put an end to the terror which Israel’s southern residents had been forced to live with for years.

Citizens of any democratic country could not be expected to quietly continue living under the conditions that Israel’s southern communities had experienced for so long. Yet the UN was silent on Israeli suffering and diplomacy with Hamas was impossible. Something had to be done. And Hamas, after ending the ceasefire, provoked Israel’s government to act responsibly and accountably towards its citizens, and do what any other democratic country in a similar situation would do: defend itself.      

 

 

 

Disproportionate?

A lot of media attention the past few weeks has been focused on the conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. I wrote the following article in my high school newspaper in March 2008, after Israel conducted a short operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. I think the arguments hold true in todays conflict as well:

Headline: Disproportionate?

Sub-head: The world condemns Israel for acting against terror that no other country would tolerate 

Imagine what our government would do if terrorists took over part of Mexico and started firing rockets into our sovereign borders – rockets that were aimed at our civilians, wreaked havoc upon our border towns and were gradually increasing in range. Obviously, America would rise up to defend itself against this terrorism – quite forcefully – and there would be no problem with this. No one in the in the world could expect us to tolerate such flagrant violations of our national sovereignty and security.

This situation has been happening in Israel. Over the past seven years, Hamas terrorists from the Gaza Strip have launched about 8,000 rockets into Israel's borders, killing, injuring and destroying. But there's one difference between the international community's treatment of Israel and its treatment of other countries: whenever Israel tries to defend its citizens from brutal terror, the world doesn't accept its actions, but in fact labels them as "disproportionate" responses.

Search "disproportionate force" on Google, and the vast majority of results that come up deal with the defensive, counterterrorist actions of this country about the size of New Jersey, nestled on the western edge of the Middle East. You'll find journalists, along with ostensibly credible sources like the United Nations or European Union, lamenting Israel's efforts to defend itself and blaming it for inadvertently killing civilians, even when those deaths are the direct result of terrorists' tactics. Governments that would do the utmost to protect their citizens if they were in a similar situation condemn Israel for exercising its moral responsibility to keep its people safe.

Let’s take what has happened this year. For years, Israel has been patient, sustaining daily rocket attacks aimed at civilian areas. Residents of communities bordering Gaza have lived in constant fear: according to a recent study by the Israel Center for Victims of Terror and War, up to 94 percent of children in Sderot, the border town that has borne the brunt of the attacks, suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder after experiences with rocket assaults. Israel has tolerated what no other democratic, sovereign nation would tolerate.

But after increasingly destructive rocket barrages in the beginning of 2008, after protests by citizens who felt as if their government had abandoned them, and after examining and attempting different options, in early March Israel decided to act against this incessant violation of its sovereignty and prevent future attacks. It launched a five-day operation to do what any responsible government would do: go after the terrorists.

Predictably, international condemnations ensued. Not significant condemnations of terrorism being inflicted upon Israeli civilians (after all, that had been happening for years and no one had spoken out), but condemnations of the “disproportionate force” that Israel was using in its fight against Hamas combatants. The Israeli Defense Forces had destroyed rocket storage sites and other terrorist infrastructure. Unfortunately, Hamas militants had used human shields during the fighting; therefore, there were also a number of Palestinian civilian casualties. And so the world, neglecting to dig beyond the surface of civilian deaths, defaulted to blaming Israel. "Disproportionate force" was in the news once again.

It seems not to matter that while Hamas terrorists aim to kill civilians, the Israeli military strategizes on how to cause the least civilian suffering while simultaneously hitting terrorist targets. This can be hard, seeing as Hamas and its allies use their own civilians as human shields. They fire rockets from civilian areas, such as residential buildings and even playgrounds, and they position themselves in civilian enclaves while in combat. But Israel’s critics seem to ignore these facts.

It seems not to matter to the international community that Israel is acting in self-defense, against military targets, while the thousands of rockets landing within its territory have been unprovoked attacks on civilians. Israel voluntarily gave up its occupation of the Gaza Strip over two years ago, so Hamas cannot claim "resistance" as a motive. Its terrorist actions are clear violations of international law. Or is international law only applicable to one side of the conflict?

One side bears responsibility for the most recent flare-up in this decades-long conflict: Hamas. It bears moral responsibility for recent Palestinian deaths and suffering in Gaza, as well as the death and suffering of Israelis. Hamas is not just some rogue splinter group – it is the official representative and governing body of the Palestinians in Gaza. It won Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006, and just last summer violently seized complete power in Gaza from the more moderate and secular Fatah party. Gaining political power didn't do much to quell Hamas's militant ideology. It opposes the peace process, or even any recognition of Israel. It deliberately targets Israeli civilians just because they are Israeli. If Hamas stops firing rockets, the bloodshed ceases; if Israel does not defend itself, rockets keep falling onto its territory.

Meanwhile, Israel is blamed for unintentional civilian deaths, deaths that it mourns, but that are the result of actions taken in defense of its populace. And when there are intentional civilian deaths – then Israel's justice system prosecutes the perpetrators, quite the opposite of the terrorists it fights, who rejoice upon hearing of a child gunned down, or a home blown up.

Let’s get one thing straight: there is no “proportionate” response to terrorism. In fact, such a response would be completely immoral. Example: terrorists send a rocket over the border, striking an Israeli nursery school and killing a teacher and a two year-old girl (as happened on June 28, 2004). Does this mean that Israel must send a similar rocket targeting a Palestinian nursery school, trying to kill exactly the same number of innocent civilians and terrorize the neighborhood? This scenario is preposterous. Should Israel try such a “proportionate” response, I will be among the first to condemn it. Now, a “disproportionate” response – targeting more civilians – would understandably be even more terrible.

But targeting the terrorists who are responsible for making your children live in fear – that’s moral. That’s called self-defense, dignity and accountability.