The pros and cons of globalisation
Some of your clothes are probably made in Asia, people speak English all over the world and you can find Mc Donald’s on every continent. Globalisation is today’s word. The world becoming smaller, items and ideas spread rapidly from place to place. Some people talk about globalisation in a negative tone, others find it necessary for us. Globalisation has its pros and cons.
Globalisation affects developed and Third World countries differently. Many industrial countries benefit economically from globalisation. Big corporations move their factories to the countries where labour costs are lower and raw materials cheap. This makes it possible to decrease the price of products and consumption increases. On the other hand the state loses tax revenues and unemployment may become a problem in the developed countries.
Although globalisation brings jobs to the developing countries, people’s salaries and working conditions are still weak there. Children often work hard so that people in rich countries can live a life of luxury. The power of large companies may also prevent the Third World countries’ economic development, because they are forced to produce one or two raw materials which don’t bring them enough money to change the system.
Globalisation makes great cultures even stronger while many weaker cultures die. It also increases the amount of global crime. Anyway, the world becoming smaller, ideas and innovations spread faster and make our life easier.
Globalisation affects us in many ways. However, it is reality and instead of trying to stop globalisation we should see its possibilities.
Oona Mölsä
Why bother
Finnish people have had the right to vote for so long that some might take it for granted. People vote when they have the right feeling or enough time to do it. For some it may be too hard to get to a polling station. If it was possible to vote on the Internet, I think a lot more people would do it.
Most people explain that they don’t vote because it doesn’t make any difference whether they vote or not. Some are not interested in politics and don’t care enough to vote, some people don’t understand politics and don’t bother to figure things out. Concepts in politics are quite difficult and people don’t want to feel stupid, so they just ignore the whole thing.
The majority of politicians are middle-aged, so young people can find it hard to relate to them and to the things they promote. Politics may seem ponderous and topics in politics are not very interesting if you have nothing to do with them. That is a huge reason why politics is often considered boring.
To get people, especially young people, to vote, politics should be made more interesting and easier to understand. Politicians should discuss topics that are important to people and make them feel like they have something to do with those topics. Now politicians focus on their own power struggles and people are starting to be tired of that.
Tiia Häppölä
