Economic and Cultural

Economic globalisation is a large driving force in the globalisation process. It is when the barriers between national economies are reduced opening up trade between nations and enhancing the ability for large companies to expand to new markets. These large companies are called Trans National Corporations. Trade has exploded since high tariffs have been taken off allowing countries to buy or sell products to other nations across the world. This is made possible by the development of large container ships and bulk air freight aircraft. Economic globalisations has also led to the development of non government organisations to stabilise the world's economy. Two examples of NGOs are, The World Trade Organisation (WTO) which helps reduce and eliminate tariffs to open up world trade and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which keeps an eye on countries exchange rates and their balance of payments helping control financial markets.

Before western culture expanded across the world, each country's culture was very diverse and untouched. People would use words to pass down information. Now because of cultural globalisation there is an increasing rate of the loss of many cultures. The largest factor of this type of globalisation is Americanisation, this is the spread of American culture and companies throughout the world. This is particularly apparent throughout Asia. Examples of American companies spreading American culture across the world include Nike, Walt Disney and Coca Cola. McDonaldisation is a another term that has been created because of globalisation. It means to standardise your company's products in every store in the world. For example if I was to buy a Big Mac from MacDonald's in Australia and then went to Japan I would still be able to buy the same tasting Big Mac and it would be made exactly the same way. In fact the relative cost of a Big Mac across all the countries in which it is sold is used as an index to compare the value of the currencies in each country. This is an index that is used by leading economists as a rule of thumb for currency value 

The English language is the fastest spreading language of its time throughout the world. It has, and still is, replacing many native languages all over the world. Language is a very important part of culture and with the loss of language means the loss of culture.

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Fig 7. Top ten Languages on the internet 2010.