Globalization and the Convergence of Values

Abstract

As the twentieth century comes to a close, the circumstances of individual nations – their affairs, news, and problems – have tended increasingly to reach and captivate global audiences. A predominant reason has been the economic importance of foreign countries. Greater numbers of domestic businesses, employees, and consumers have looked to foreign markets, investors, and products for economic prosperity as well as economic competition. While driven primarily by economic factors, the process of globalization – in which international issues become as important as national, state, and local matters – has significant political and other non-economic content. Democracy and human rights are, for example, as much a part of globalization as are free market principles. While globalization has detrimental effects, they can be minimized through the cooperative efforts of the United States and the other industrialized democracies which share basic economic and political values. America and its democratic allies should strongly promote and carefully manage globalization, for it has significant beneficial implications for humanity. Globalization is causing, and being reinforced by, a worldwide convergence of economic and political values that portend a possible, though distant, future world in which human beings will look upon themselves as part of a single humane civilization comprised of a single human race.