Globalisation is a long-term historical process of world integration involving social, economic and political changes as a result of technological advances. As McLuhan (2001) says, "The concept is of one being connected by an electric nervous system within which the actions of one part will affect the whole".
Globalisation, intended as the removal of barriers to free trade and the closer integration of national economies, can have the potential to enrich everyone in the world. However, the mismanagement of the processes of privatisation, liberalisation and stabilisation has led to more people worse off now than they were before. Furthermore this mismanagement has caused a serious deterioration of the environment and created great global economic instability.
While the development of China shows that a gradual integration can produce better results, the creation of a trading bloc with a strong tradition of social protection, the EU, has not yet proved a challenge to the USA led anti-social policies accompanying globalisation.
DEFINITION OF GLOBALIZATION
The concept of an interconnected world is not new. In the late 19th century, there was already an open global economy, with a great deal of trade, including trade in currencies (Castells, 2000).
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