Journal claudia's Journal: Globalization: U.S. vs. Ireland 5
I ran across this very interesting article on Metafilter regarding globalization.
I'm not too surprised that Ireland ranks first. The company I work for drooled at the prospect of opening an office in one of the hottest tech cities in the last few years: Dublin.
But why is that?
Take a look at the top 10 countries on the list. What I find immensely interesting is that not only are they hosts to various UN organizations and international courts, but not a single one of them has a strong military. Also, none of those countries have a foreign policy which aims to impose its will on other countries.
It will be interesting to see in future years how the U.S. fares on that list. My prediction is that it will drop.
US too big or simply to arrogant? (Score:2)
Perhaps one problem is the size of the US, it's almost an entire continent. To me it seems fare to compare it to Europe instead of seperate countries. I wonder how different states would do in such a list...
Other thoughts: I would have expected Japan and Hong Kong somewhere in the top 20. Well then again, their economy doesn't do very well I guess and they tend to stick to their own country. Except for Western Europe and the US, to me the 6 surprising coutries are Singapore, Canada, Czech Republic, New Zealand, Malaysia and Isreal.
But let's get back to - my opinion on - the US. The US may run into trouble if they keep their very US centric views and their arrogant attitude towards the rest of the world. Things have changed since we have phone and we do not have to travel to talk to our relatives in whatever part of the world. Things have changed by television, and it will change even more by internet access to the masses.
In the past power - both economic and military - was simply a thing of muscles and a big mouth. Nowadays it moves towards information, but muscles have not dissapeared yet. They probably never entirely will but the focus will be on information. And the latter is very difficult to obtain without communication which needs a positive attitude towards others.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:US too big or simply to arrogant? (Score:2)
I'm not surprised by either Malaysia or Singapore. They manufacture most of the world's hard drives.
Like you, I'm surprised Japan isn't on the list. I wonder if it's too much of a cultural or linguistic difference to be truly global?
I personally see the U.S., in the future, having to conduct most of its business through the countries higher on the list. You can only be at War with Oceania for so long.
Re:US too big or simply to arrogant? (Score:1)
to me the 6 surprising coutries are Singapore, Canada, Czech Republic, New Zealand, Malaysia and Isreal.
Israel seems a no-brainer. 3 major religions have major holy sites in a tiny area. You're going to have constant exposure to many different countries. The other half of why Israel isn't surprising applies to the rest, too. Trade and Loans. With the U.S. pouring cash into Israel, and with Israel running strong import/export trades, they have ties with gobs of economies outside their nation. I recently got a case of fresh Lychees *not* from Asia, but Israel! Israel? Surprised me.
But why has the modern age failed to reach two continents? What forces work to keep Africa and South America in such depressed straights?
Re:US too big or simply to arrogant? (Score:2)
Even worse, a little shocked I realize I seem to know very little about South America. Except from football, rainforest, Andes and coffee and drugs - Columbia - nothing comes to mind.
A quick thought (as most of my post are)...
Maybe it's because a lot of these countries are former colonies, and therefore have unstable or colonial like regimes, which don't seem te be a good base for investments. Most money that goes to them are loans used to prevent their inhabitants suffering from hunger and other immediate problems. Some of these countries have or had econimies with strong export: coffee, gold for example, but again instable governments and or small parties of greedy leaders seem to have ruined these countries. To me this seems an explanation for most of these countries.
Another explanation might be the fact that due to lack of good infrastructure and major airports or seaports countries in Middle Africa and the south west of South America are quite isolated from the rest of the world.
Or perhaps it's just nature, in some area's conditions are so harsh almost nobody wants to live or even go there, leaving inhabitants in isolation.