Positive and Negative Consequences of a Growing Economy

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Any major change will always be followed by both positive and negative consequences. And that is true for Vietnam and the economic changes that took place once they started to globalize. Around the end of the Cold War in the 1990s, Vietnam began to change their foreign policy. As Vietnam opened their borders and began to trade globally, the country's economy changed as well. 

Becoming a part of the global economy has had many positive effects on Vietnam, such as improved living conditions, higher wages and an increase in Foreign Direct Investment. Yet it also ties the country to the control and stability of other countries. These positive and negative consequences show how a country can form a give and take relationship with how they globalize. Each individual country will have to weight the pros and the cons and ultimately decide if globalization works for them. And at this point, most countries have decided that the pros outweigh the cons.

This brings back up an idea of Guarded Globalization that I referred to in an earlier post. Should countries, especially developing economies be more careful about who they choose to trade with internationally? Would that even make a difference? While I think taking the time to evaluate the situation before creating a symbiotic relationship with another country is important, I think that the economic benefits of globalization greatly outweigh the chance of instability. 

Yes, I understand that when a country basically ties their economy onto the economy of another country their can be a loss of control, and there can be periods of instability when the larger country's economy fails. But I think that the opportunity to better improve a countries economic system and the living conditions of its people [not to mention some of the other benefits] are worth this risk. Because in the end, what would our world look like if we hadn't globalized? Would we be sitting in this classroom even discussing it?

How is Globalization Affecting Culture?

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Globalization has many positive and negative impacts on any country, but especially developing economies. Many are not seeing changes to just their economic system either as one would expect. Globalization is also affecting the countries culture. For example, in Vietnam globalization has modernized and created a more diverse cultural life by infusing different country's culture into Vietnam. Some of these changes even include how individuals view their values. Some are taking on a more "modern" value set while others are fighting against this change and taking on a more traditional value set. Those who are embracing the modern influences are mainly those of the younger generation who are seeking independence, wealthy and success.

You might expect that this differing opinion on cultural values might cause some chaos. Instead, it is causing Vietnamese people to get involved and excited about their country in a way they never have before. People are going out and exploring new ideas and interests that they never thought existed - which in turn is creating a more dynamic Vietnam.

This impact can be seen in countries across the globe and I personally found it particularly interesting. At first, I thought that globalization would just infuse new culture into a country, and those who embraced it would modernize and those who didn't would do everything they could to fight against it. I never considered the fact that this modernization might make those who wanted the traditional values to still be apart of the country's culture step back and really appreciate those traditional values. It is an interesting thought that shows just how many different ways globalization can affect a country.

Ian Goldin: Navigating Our Global Future

In this interesting video from TEDGlobal 2009, Ian Goldin discusses how globalization is advancing but there is a growing gap between who benefits from this advancement. He states that we need to focus on how to learn from our experience with globalization so far, and prepare to be able to take care of generations in the future. But first, we have to recognize this growing gap so that then we can realize that we are able to improve life for everyone.

When looking at the affects of globalization in Vietnam, they did experience a growing gap between social classes. From looking at research from different sources you can see that globalization allowed most to move out of poverty by them migrating to the bigger cities and getting new jobs that had higher wages. But this left behind those who didn't migrate, those who stayed back in the more rural areas. It is time to think about what to do in order to lessen this gap, how to make it so globalization helps an entire economy rather than just the higher classes.

Guarded Globalization?

Are we entering a new era of globalization? Are the rules and the major players of the game changing?

As I was researching the impacts of globalization for my paper I stumbled upon an interesting article. Ian Bremmer wrote this piece "The New Rules of Globalization" which was published in the Harvard Business Review. He states that we are entering a different phase of globalization called "guarded globalization" where governments of developing nations are skeptical of participating in global business in the aftermath of the global recession. He lists many factors as to why this could be happening, I found the most interesting to be the fact that China now establishes the international business rules rather than follows them. It seems to me like the major players of the global world are changing and not necessarily for the better. Developing countries now feel as if their are new costs and risk associated with globalization, and there seems to be an uncertainty of the future attached to it.

But are these countries sort of in between a rock and a hard place? For developing countries, there are many benefits to globalization, but are those benefits now being outweighed by the consequences? Would it even be possible for them to shut down their borders and refuse to participate in our global world?

To read more of Ian Bremmer's article click HERE.