Globalization in the Caribbean

Globalization refers to the emergence in the twentieth century, of a global community, whereby cultural, economic, environment and political events occurring in communities in one part of the world has quickly come to be significant to people in other societies.

The way in which technology has ‘evolved’ has resulted in an advance in communication, transportation, scientific discoveries, and information technology. These advances, which are the basis of globalization, have infiltrated and affected every possible nuance of Caribbean life, so that it is almost impossible to imagine life without them. Like all entities that change the world in which we live, globalization has both negative and positive impacts; in the Caribbean its positive aspects include a basic ‘knowledge-sharing’ and easier access to more resources. Disadvantages of globalization here in the Caribbean revolve mainly around the way in which it adversely affects our small island economies.

The Caribbean has benefited in numerous ways from globalization. First and foremost is the fact that due to twentieth century leaps in communication techniques, national banks and investment entities that aid in generating finance for their respective Caribbean states are now able to access income-generating programmes-such as the trading of money, stock and bonds- twenty-four hours a day, in almost very part of the world. These communication techniques have also greatly reduced communication costs and time to a bare minimum. Additionally, Caribbean people have found that they are also able to access greater, more varied range of services as a result of globalization. With the use of technologies like the internet, they can buy and sell almost anything from almost any place on earth with just a click of a mouse button; sometimes for a fraction of its cost had it been purchased locally. Furthermore, with policies -such as that of free trade- food items, clothes, luxuries, educational equipment, and other