Present Day Globalisation

Saksar Sawasth Aur secular Haryana
How Did Today's Phase of Globalisation Start?
Human beings, as long as they have lived on earth, have been moving around the world, trading, learning and interacting. But from the seventeenth century arose a new situation, that of colonialism.
Colonialism is often referred to as the first wave of globalisation and contributed to the most significant feature of the global economy today: the division between the First World, of, by and large, colonial nations, and the Third World, of colonised ones. After the Second World War, newly liberated nations like India, China and many others attempted to break free of the colonial chains
that had forced their countries into underdevelopment. Policies of self-reliant development were put in place in the newly independent nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America that minimized dependence on the developed nations for import of resources and technology. Food availability and incomes rose in these countries, as did investment in social sectors such as health, nutrition and education. Reflecting all these changes there were improvements in health indices as life expectations increased, the morbidity and mortality rates declined and birth rates increased. In the late 1970s, however, the global economy was overwhelmed by a crisis, where growth of production started slowing down and rates of unemployment started growing alongside rises in prices of commodities. These changes took place together with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the state controlled economies of the socialist world. They also led to a reshaping of the capitalist world, and led to a complex of changes known as globalisation, privatisation and liberalisation. They are also described, equally accurately, as corporate globalisation, or imperialist globalisation.
[Economic policies that were now imposed by the developed countries, called "neo-liberal" policies, reflected an ideological commitment to market principles, ignoring the remarkable role that
the government had played even in the advanced capitalist countries.]
After the Second World War, government involvement in public health had been considered crucial and essential in developed countries of Europe. Soon neoliberal policies came to be imposed in the
developing countries as well, at the insistence of the developed nations and the institutions controlled by them, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Reduction of the role of governments and importance provided to the role of the market was thus at the center of this model of development. Economic growth, it was maintained despite extensive evidence to the contrary, would trickle down to the less fortunate and thus result in overall development.

R.S.Dahiya