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Globalization is the process of international integration arising from the interchange of world views,products,ideas and other aspects of culture.Advances in transportation and telecommunications infrastructure,including the rise of the telegraph and its development of Internet,are major factors in globalization,generating further interdependence of economic and cultural activities.The term globalization had been used in its economic sense at least as early as 1981,and in other senses since at least as early as 1944.Theodore Levitt is credited with popularizing the term and bringing it into the mainstream business audience in the later half of the 1980s.
Though scholars place the origins of globalization in modern times,others trace its history long before the European Age of Discovery and voyages to the New World.Large-scale globalization began in the 19th century.In the late 19th century and early 20th century,the connectedness of the world‘s economies and cultures grew very quickly.
In 2000,the International Monetary Fund(IMF)identified four basic aspects of globalization:trade and transactions,capital and investment movements,migration and movement of people,and the dissemination of knowledge.Further,environmental challenges such as global warming,cross-boundary water and air pollution,and over-fishing of the ocean are linked with globalization.Globalizing processes affect and are affected by business and work organization,economics,socio-cultural resources,and the natural environment.
Humans have interacted over long distances for thousands of years.The overland Silk Road that connected Asia,Africa,and Europe is a good example of the transformative power of trans-local exchange that existed in the“Old World”.Philosophy,religion,language,the arts,and other aspects of culture spread and mixed as nations exchanged products and ideas.In both the 15th and 16th centuries,Europeans made important discoveries in their exploration of the oceans,including the start of transatlantic travel to the“New World”of the Americas.Global movement of people,goods,and ideas expanded significantly in the following centuries.Early on in the 19th century,the development of new forms of transportation(such as the steamship and railroads)and telecommunications that“compressed”time and space allowed for increasingly rapid rates of global interchange.In the 20th century,road vehicles,intermodal transport,and airlines made transportation even faster.The advent of electronic communications,most notably mobile phones and the Internet,connected billions of people in new ways by the year 2010.
Trade on the Silk Road was a significant factor in the development of the civilizations of China,the Indian subcontinent,Persia,Europe,and Arabia,opening long-distance,political and economic interactions between the civilizations.Though silk was certainly the major trade item from China,many other goods were traded,and religions,syncretic philosophies,and various technologies,as well as diseases,also travelled along the Silk Routes.In addition to economic trade,the Silk Road served as a means of carrying out cultural trade among the civilizations along its network.The movement of people,such as refugees,artists,craftsmen,missionaries,robbers and envoys,resulted in the exchange of religions,art,languages and new technologies.
The first modern wave of economic globalization began during the period of 1870-1914,marked by transportation expansion,record levels of migration,enhanced communications,trade expansion,and growth in capital transfers.During the mid-nineteenth century,the passport system in Europe dissolved as rail transport expanded rapidly.Most countries issuing passports did not require their carry,thus people could travel freely without them.The standardization of international passports would not arise until 1980 under the guidance of the United Nations International Civil Aviation Organization.From 1870 to 1915,36 million Europeans migrated away from Europe.Approximately 25 million(or 70%)of these travelers migrated to the United States,while most of the rest reached Canada,Australia,Argentina,and Brazil.Europe itself experienced an influx of foreigners from 1860 to 1910,growing from 0.7%of the population to 1.8%.While the absence of meaningful passport requirements allowed for free travel,migration on such an enormous scale would have been prohibitively difficult if not for technological advances in transportation,particularly the expansion of railway travel and the dominance of steam-powered boats over traditional sailing ships.World railway mileage grew from 205 000 kilometers in 1870 to 925 000 kilometers in 1906,while steamboat cargo tonnage surpassed that of sailboats in the 1890s.Advancements such as the telephone and wireless telegraphy revolutionized telecommunication by providing instantaneous communication.In 1866,the first transatlantic cable was laid beneath the ocean to connect London and New York,while Europe and Asia became connected through new landlines.
Economic globalization grew under free trade,starting in 1860 when the United Kingdom entered into a free trade agreement with France known as the Cobden-Chevalier Treaty.However,the golden age of this wave of globalization endured a return to protectionism between 1880 and 1914.In 1879,German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck introduced protective tariffs on agricultural and manufacturing goods,making Germany the first nation to institute new protective trade policies.In 1892,France introduced the Méline tariff,greatly raising customs duties on both agricultural and manufacturing goods.The United States maintained strong protectionism during most of the nineteenth century,imposing customs duties between 40%and 50%on imported goods.Despite these measures,international trade continued to grow without slowing.Paradoxically,foreign trade grew at a much faster rate during the protectionist phase of the first wave of globalization than during the free trade phase sparked by the United Kingdom.
Unprecedented growth in foreign investment from the 1880s to the 1900s served as the core driver of financial globalization.The worldwide total of capital invested abroad amounted to US＄44 billion in 1913(＄1.02 trillion in 2012 dollars),with the greatest share of foreign assets held by the United Kingdom(42%),France(20%),Germany(13%),and the United States(8%).The Netherlands,Belgium,and Switzerland together held foreign investments on par with Germany at around 12%.
The world experienced substantial changes prior to 1914,which created an environment favorable to an increase in and development of international financial centers.Principal among such changes were unprecedented growth in capital flows and the resulting rapid financial center integration,as well as faster communication.Before 1870,London and Paris existed as the world‘s only prominent financial centers.Berlin and New York soon rose to eminence on par with London and Paris.An array of smaller financial centers became important as they found market niches,such as Amsterdam,Brussels,Zurich,and Geneva.London remained the leading international financial center in the four decades leading up to World War I.
Growth of globalization has never been smooth.One influential event was the late 2000s recession,which was associated with lower growth(such as cross-border phone calls and Skype usage)or even temporarily negative growth(such as trade)of global interconnectedness.The DHL Global Connectedness Index studies four main types of cross-border flow:trade(in both goods and services),information,people(including tourists,students and migrants)and capital.It shows that the depth of global integration fell by about one-tenth after 2008,but by 2013 had recovered well above its pre-crash peak.The report also found a shift of economic activity to emerging economies.