Arguments in favour of globalization, and arguments against

2. Source of Repeated Economic Crises:
The new global order has been experiencing increased financial volatility, and from the Third World debt crisis of the early 1980s to the Mexican breakdown of 1994-95 to the South East Asian debacle of the 1990s, financial crisis have become more and more threatening and extensive. With increasing privatisation and deregulation, the discrepancy between the power of unregulated financial forces and that of governments and regulatory bodies has been increasing and the potential for a global breakdown has been steadily enlarging.
3. Globalisation as an Imposed Decision of the Rich:
The critics of Globalisation even go to the extent of describing it as an imposed decision and not a democratic choice of the people of the world. The process has been business driven, by business strategies and tactics and for business ends.
Governments have helped, by incremental policy actions, and by larger actions that were often taken in secret, without national debates and discussions of where the entire process of globalisation was taking the community. In the case of some major actions advancing the globalisation process, like passing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) or joining the European Monetary Union (EMU), policies were subjected to massive propaganda campaigns by the interested business-media elites.
In the United States, public opinion polls showed the general public against NAFTA even after incessant propaganda, but the mass media supported it, and it was passed. In Europe as well, polls have shown that persistent majorities have been opposed to the introduction of the Euro, but a powerful elite supports it, so it moves forward.
4. Unequal Distribution of Benefits:
This undemocratic process, carried out within a democratic facade, has been inconsistent with the distribution of benefits and costs of globalisation. The fact has been that globalisation has been working as a tool designed to serve elite interests. Globalisation has also steadily weakened democracy, partly as a result of unplanned effects, and partly because of the containment of labour costs and scaling down of the welfare state which enabled the business minority to establish firm control of the state and reduce its capacity to respond to the demands of the majority.
5. Strengthened Role of MNCs:
Under the goals of globalisation, the business community, particularly the MNC brotherhood, has also mounted a powerful effort to dominate governments—either by capture or by limiting their ability to serve ordinary citizens. By enlarging business profits and weakening labour, globalisation has shifted the balance of power further towards business. The political parties in all countries have been getting decisively influenced by business money in elections.
6. Private Profits at the Cost of Social Security:
The efforts of the corporate elite as aided and validated by international financial institutions and by media support, have been regularly causing social democrats and social activists to retreat to policies acceptable to the dominant business elite.
Thus, in almost all the countries, even the democratic parties, more particularly the social democratic parties have been accepting neo-liberalism, despite the opposed preferences of great majorities of their voting constituencies. Democracy no longer able to serve ordinary citizens, making elections meaningless and democracy empty of substance. The fall in voter turnouts in various democracies reflects the growing alienation of the masses from the political process.