6. Globalization
 
Definition:
 
Globalization is the increasing connections between corporations, society, economy, science, and technology and the rules that allow them to do business together.  Prof. Jeffrey Sachs, Columbia University and Special Advisor to the United Nations
 
What are some of the problems related to this issue?
 
Globalization allows transnational corporations to produce goods in developing countries, which creates extreme environmental decay, out of sight from the consumers of these goods in developed countries.  Naomi Klein
 
In the process of world globalization, the gap between rich and poor countries is ever greater. In the face of populations that live in conditions of unacceptable misery, in the face of those who are in situations of hunger, poverty and growing social inequalities, it is urgent to intervene to safeguard the dignity of the person and to foster the promotion of the common good.  Pope John Paul II
 
Globalization is a vast economic system that has the most profound negative effects on the people who usually have least control over it. Nadine Gordimer, Nobel Laureate, South Africa
 
NAFTA includes unprecedented ways for corporations to attack our laws through so-called "investor-to-state" lawsuits. Such suits, established by NAFTA's Chapter 11, allow corporations to sue governments for compensation if they feel that any government action, including the enforcement of public health and safety laws, cuts into their profits. Already, Chapter 11 lawsuits have been used to repeal a Canadian law banning a chemical linked to nervous system damage, and to challenge California's phase-out of a gas additive, MTBE, that is poisoning the state's ground water. Negotiators want to include these anti-democratic lawsuits in the FTAA.  Global Exchange
 
Fifty-one of the world's top 100 economies are corporations.  Royal Dutch Shell's revenues are greater than Venezuela's Gross Domestic Product. Using this measurement, WalMart is bigger than Indonesia. General Motors is roughly the same size as Ireland, New Zealand and Hungary combined. Ninety-nine of the 100 largest transnational corporations are from the industrialized countries.  Global Exchange
 

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