Trade Essay

International Trends –Globalisation and the Capitalist Free Market

This paper examines the international trends of globalisation and the capitalist free market. Globalisation and the continuing evolution of free market capitalism has shaped the world significantly on a political, commercial and social level, particularly over the past three decades. Many would argue that globalisation and free market capitalism has delivered significant worldwide benefits in the late 20th and early 21st century, from reducing poverty and increasing employment to improving the quality and choice of goods available to us as end consumers and of course the creation of immense wealth – albeit for a select few. In the last year however the world has seen the dramatic negative effects of these very systems, globalization and free market capitalism, with the impacts of their failure spreading rapidly across the new ‘globalised’ world economy. The aim of this paper is to highlight global trends and how they have evolved over the decades since World War II, and to hypothesise what international trends are likely to emerge from the ashes of the post World War II economy.

In Global Business Today, Hill et-al. describes globalisation. Hill describes how the world’s economies have undergone a shift, a move away from national economies that are self-sustained and heavily protected by tariffs and regulations on cross-border investment. Hill explains that as these national barriers have been removed a more united and ‘global’ world economy has evolved. Goods and services travel freely between nation-states and advances in technology have made physical distance almost irrelevant. “National economic systems are merging into an interdependent, integrated global economic system” (Hill et all. 2008, p9).

Globalisation began as an international trend in 1945, following the end of World War II, when 15 countries began talks on reducing customs tariffs between their nations. These countries... [continues]

Read full essay