(Hint: the Wikipedia article on globalization is not bad at all...)
Not a lot of reading for Thursday!
Here is a great article from the Houston Chronicle on how a globalized, free-trade world has affected coffee growers in Central America! Really worth reading!
Optional: Thomas Friedman is very pro-globalization, and he has written several best-selling books on the subject. It may be a bit difficult to follow if your English is not excellent, but you might try to read or skim the first chapter of his book, "The Lexus and the Olive Tree." It is here.
Friedman does a good job of linking both the economic engine and cultural consequences of globalization. But so does Benjamin Barber, who focuses on the cultural/political nexus in his famous article "Jihad vs. McWorld."
Sweatshops and child labor
A "sweatshop" is a factory or assembly plant in which people work in harsh conditions for very low wages. The pattern is that they are often from rural areas and migrate to the urban sweatshops in the hopes of raising their standard of living. Human rights groups often condemn sweatshops as places that exploit cheap labor, usually in horrific conditions.
Optional: Here is a web site run by American students who have worked to end the exploitative conditions in sweatshops all over the world.
Nike is often accused of sweatshop labor practices in Asia and elsewhere. Here is just one of many ant-Nike sites. Nike admits to using children in their factories here.
Required: Nicholas Kristof has written about Asian sweatshop labor - one controversial aspect of globalization. Go here for his appraisal that maybe this kind of labor has its virtues.
Required: Also see this article published in January of this year on the advantages of sweatshops.
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