The Truth about Globalization - Essay Example

Johan Norberg: “I plead for greater liberty and a more open world, not because I believe one system happens to be more efficient than another, but because those things provide a setting that unleashes individual creativity as no other system can” (Norberg 2005, p:14).  

Wolf in “Why Globalization Works” (2005) is even more radical and argues that “the market is the most powerful institution for raising living standards ever invented indeed there are no rivals. The problem today is not that there is too much globalization, but that there is far too little” (Wolf 2005, p: 17). The citation was taken from Wolf’s book, which I downloaded from Rapid share. I can’t find the link now. But it is very famous and can be found in many articles.

Check, for instance, http://www.up.ac.za/dspace/bitstream/2263/5186/1/Bedford-Strohm_Public(2007).pdf";The degree to which national economies are integrated is not at all obvious. It depends on your choice of perspective. During the last few decades, international flows of goods and financial capital have certainly increased dramatically.  International financial markets are not tracked as easily as cross-border flows of goods and services.

But by a variety of measures, they have also expanded considerably, especially in the last decade. Total assets held by U.S. investors in other nations nearly tripled from $2.3 trillion in 1991 to $6.2 trillion in 2000. Conversely, total foreign-owned assets in the U.S. economy quadrupled from $2 trillion in 1991 to $8 trillion in 2000. Annual global flows of "foreign direct investment"--that are, an investment that creates a lasting management interest, often defined as more than 10 percent of voting stock in a company--rose from $200 billion in 1990 to nearly $900 billion in 1999.

   For many countries, international financial markets feel more like an anvil on their toes than a parade of dry statistics. Argentina in 2002 has no remaining doubts about the size and power of international capital movement several of countries and regions have recently suffered through economic instability and recessions caused by rapid outflows of international capital.