Is Poverty Really a Side Effect of Globalization?

Throughout history businesses have tried to find new an innovative ways to expand business and profits. With the ever increasing effects of globalization on our economy as well as the economies of the other countries that provide the workers, labor, or resources, people are trying to find reasons as to why the businesses are prospering while the laborers or struggling. The wealthy countries that own the businesses are blamed in exploiting labor from workers in underdeveloped countries. In this paper I will explore the options to help decide whether companies are unfairly taking advantage of a situation for profit or if globalization really is not the root cause of exploitation in these countries.

In 1983, Theodore Levitt published an article called "The Globalization of Markets" (Tedlow & Abdelal, 11). This was the first use of the term globalization in a business sense. This revolutionized the way that managers and companies could create new opportunities in other countries to benefit their businesses. This called for companies not to think just multinational, but globally (12). If they could find ways to create business practices that create the highest quality, low cost products that can be mass produced and distributed throughout the entire world, then they will be the best and most profitable corporations (13).

The term globalization was not defined until 1992, when Roland Robertson referred to it as, "both to the compression of the world and the intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole" (Kumar, 96). He believed that markets and businesses should all try towards "unity" and that would create the best business opportunities (97). By making the world one big market, everyone would be able to benefit from the same profits, goods, and services.