bogarde73 wrote on Feb 7
th, 2016 at 12:32pm:
Ah but don't get carried away
Hasten slowly like a good conservative that I know you ain't.
Globalisation per se doesn't equate with progress. I only have to cite the TPP and corporate/state dispute resolution to make my point.
True. Globalisation is indifferent. What countries do with it is key. A country’s terms of trade is crucial: it’s pointless importing foreign goods if no one can afford them. I don’t see too many of the benefits of globalisation when I’m in small towns in India - you’d be lucky to get one kind of cheese there. India is still a heavily protected economy, but it’s slowly coming out. You can finally buy Coca Cola in India now. This now competes with the locally made, "Thumbs Up". Japanese scooters now compete with the British motorcycles, Royal Enfield. You even see cars on the road that aren’t those 1950s Ambassadors. Some even have seatbelts.
How can this not be seen as progress? I’m not talking about a better society here, or human evolution. I’m talking simply about the ability to buy foreign goods and services.
But - opening up the horizons of your village is progress too. It has its good and bad points - no one said progress is all good. Being able to travel and learn how others live is what has always inspired social evolution. In the past, this was normally done during war. Now we’re doing it in peacetime.
Competition, trade and foreign integration has the ability to make us better. It’s up to us how we do it. Unlike the majority of Indians, we can afford foreign products. We can afford to travel, study and do business overseas. Currently, our dollar is high. Our terms of trade are good.
This gives us far more opportunities than most of the world. You don’t see Aldi in India.
Mind you, Air Asia’s taking off there, so there’s hope.