Globalization: A borderless society

Globalization can be defined as the gradual process of integration of economies and societies brought about by new technologies and economic relationships as well as the national and international policies that involves a wide range of players that include governments and international organizations in addition to business, labor and civil society. Globalization is observed to embrace trade and long-term direct foreign investment by multinationals and also the flow of short-term portfolio capital, (Albert and Yosef1999). Thus globalization facilitates the flow of goods and services, not counting capital and information across seamless territorial borders. In this world because of globalization, production, shopping, investment and saving are no longer limited to national boundary but have gone to global scale. Globalization has distorted the economic distinctions that previously existed between countries and created a borderless society where decisions regarding to economic issues are made without referring to national boundaries. This paper is therefore in support of the statement that, globalization has created a borderless society. The paper will give various evidence and examples to show the reality of the situation on the ground.

Discussion

Globalization has made national borders to become economically insignificant. It has created a world where financial capital, production activities and labor force can move to other territories that promise better opportunities. In the recent past there has been a phenomenal increase in the level of international economic activity stimulated by myriad factors that range from innovations in the field of information technology to efforts coming from national governments to initiate liberalization and deregulate markets, (Ohmae 1990). This has resulted to impressive expansion in world trade, investment in overseas operations as well as international flows of capital. Thus the growth in international economic activity and increased public awareness clearly indicate the strengthening economic ties between countries. Country like United States exhibits this trend and can viewed to be more open today compared to when it was some 25 years ago.

Global and Regional Integration: Evidence for U.S. Product markets

National economies link up because of their involvement in the trade of goods and services as well as through cross-border flows of financial assets and labor migration. International economic integration can be as a process which involves reduction in barriers between national economies which leads to strengthening of ties. Integration was previously associated with precise government actions of lowering tariffs and other artificial barriers that affect the movement of goods, services and inputs. However the advancement in communication and information technologies has also led to the promotion of economic integration through enhancement of the knowledge of and access to foreign consumers and products. In measuring the strength of an economy with respect to its ties with the rest of the world it is advisable to apply one of the common approaches, that involves measuring its share of economic activity that include exchanges with other nations. If the share is large it implies that the nation is an open economy, meaning that it has stronger links to the world economy. In using this approach, it is observed that the markets for goods produced in the US have in essence become more open. Since it is measured relative to gross domestic product (GDP) it can be reported that the merchandise trade more than doubled between 1970-1971 and 1995-1996 and this is attributed to the significant increase in both exports and imports, (Ohmae,1990). Recently, United States, Canada and Mexico have signed trade agreements that have created a tri-national free trade area. In 1989 CUSFTA, which means the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement liberalized trade between two countries, United States and Canada. In 1994, NAFTA went ahead to extend the free trade area to Mexico. This has in effect resulted to the elimination of formal barriers to trade and investment between United States, Canada and Mexico. Thus the elimination of economic barriers between the three nations has greatly promoted their integration. It is reported that United States merchandise trade with Canada and Mexico achieved a growth of 2.3% of its GDP in 1970 -1971 to 5.4% in 1995-1996. Some of this growth is attributable to prior creation of the North American free trade thus suggesting that there had been an ongoing process of economic integration between US and the two other members of NAFTA. Nonetheless the recent trade agreements are observed to have played partially in the significant growth since the period around 1990-1991. The trade agreements between the three economies might also be a factor that has contributed to the sustained increase in the share of private services trade with Canada.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, we can conclude that globalization has created borderless society. Globalization which means integration of economies and societies has brought about a lot of changes globally and these include free movement of goods, services, capital and information across seamless territorial borders. A country like United States has opened its borders to allow free movement of goods and services and this has led to the growth of US economy in terms of trade. Its trade agreements with nations like Mexico and Canada have indeed promoted integration between the three nations. The most important part is the elimination of trade barriers between the three nations which has facilitated the flow of goods and services across the nations. Traders from either country could obtain goods and services depending on the comparative advantage of the nations. Market accessibility by people from the three countries has been made possible thanks to globalization, as they can move freely from one nation to another in such of available investment opportunities as well as buying and selling of goods and services. This in effect has promoted competition between nations resulting to efficient use of factors of production to produce goods and services.