THE COSTLY EFFECTS OF GLOBALIZATION IN AMERICA TODAY. BUT WILL THEY LAST FOREVER?

There's no doubt that America has lost many jobs over the years due to globalization. Whether it's offshoring, or outsourcing the American people have been watching jobs that built their middle class in the 20th century disperse across the world. Factory work, and hard labor have been shipped across seas to be done in lower wages then shipped back to make a profit.

The list could go on forever on the jobs that have been 'lost' in America. Textiles, car manufacturing, and manufacturing in general are no longer the middle class American jobs. Instead we have seen a shift into information technology, services, and entrepreneurship.

Now more than ever people are getting college educations for service sector jobs: lawyers, doctors, psychologists, teachers, the list goes on and on (check out the link). This is the change we are seeing in America today, and it is for sure frightening. We are embarking on something new, for nearly a century and a half the American middle class has been built around industrialization, and as we are now in the 21st century we can really see how times have changed.

Being a first world country, America, and other countries alike, have now all embarked on the same life cycle. First being a society build around agriculture, then dominated by an industrial revolution, which mechanized agriculture allowing people to leave the farm and work/move into cities. After that, more and more people moved to cities, and suburbs began to appear, and we see the growth in the Service sector and manufacturing jobs begin disappearing across seas, America and other first world countries alike soon become the headquarters for multinational business rather than the epicenter. We then find ourselves overcome by the technological/information revolution which has gotten us to our current state based around the service and information sector. 

In this process, it is debated that we have lost a huge portion of the economy that makes our middle class. Now that we, along with the other first world countries in the world are the first to go through this change, only time will tell how our middle class and economies take shape. 

Which brings me to the point that, will these effects which we are complaining about (outsourcing, offshoring, and widespread multinational companies) come to an end? Maybe, maybe not. But, it is arguable that the same economic cycle we as a first world country have gone through, will just as seamlessly and eventually happen to nearly all second and eventually third world countries. 

So in 100 years will a third world country simply be the standards of Americas first world standard of living today? And what does that mean for first world standards of living?  It is completely true that eventually it will become just as expensive to make iPad's in China as it might be in the United States. And we are already seeing this begin to take form as second world countries economies begin to strengthen. 

Eventually will first world countries simply produce all of their own manufactured goods, and provide all their services? It seems like taking a step backwards into the mid 20th century when nearly anything you could need was produced here in your home country, but instead the services would be much more extensive and technological. There is obviously no way to know what exactly will happen. But it is for sure to say that the suffering we as Americans are feeling now, this pull on the middle class job sector, simply needs time to develop. 

As we begin to get more and more into information technology, and as we begin to educate the population for these new jobs that are emerging I believe that we will see an improvement in spirits and economy. It could be 10, 20, 30, well now I don't want to be pessimistic, but it could be many years before anything. Who knows. I sure don't. But, I do think that we need to give ourselves time as a country to ease into the position we are in, and build ourselves up! I think thats fair enough. Do you?

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