Global capital, production and trade
According to Blowfield and Murray (2011) the most important outcome of globalization for business has been the enormous increases in international trade and investment. In the last half of the twentieth century, the value of world trade soared from $57 billion to $6 trillion. This has gone hand in glove with the liberalization
of financial transactions, whereby a combination of technological advances and policies to remove credit controls, deregulate interest rates, and privatize banking has created much greater investment opportunities. Today, global business-to- business transactions have been worth about $6 trillion and the world´s financial markets have become more like network in cyberspace that can relay billions of trans almoust instantaneously.
Speculative investment has increased due
to the ease of conducting fast, low- cost transactions. Global investment has also led to industry state-owned companies. Indeed, globalization challenges the very idea of an American or European company given how shares are owned around the world. Some skeptics say what is viewed as an unhealthy growth in corporate power and alarm at facts such as that a third of world trade occurs between multinational corporations or that five companies control the global market for consumer durables. It has also provoked fears about security, the global power balance, and other national imperatives.
The changing nature of governance and enforcement
Mention of the different, more often lenient, regulatory regimes enjoyed by companies in EPZs is an example of how globalization is connected to changes in how society is governed. In part, this is because liberal globalization depends on the slew of policy changes.
At the same time, deterritorialization creates a new space that cannot be readily governed by existing governance structures, such as national governments, or even the international mechanisms housed within the United Nations. For example, a national government can
legislate on toxic emissions, but once those emissions affect the global commons, a multinational solution is required. There are few long-established institutions with an international regulatory mandate – notably the International Labor Organization (ILO), national laws
applying to actions overseas (US Alien Tort Claims Act 1789).
Creating the World Trade Organization in 1995 was one of the most important steps in creating a new model of international governance.
Part international