So far, all I can come up with is that Globalisation is a means for the rich to expand their activities exploiting resources as they go. Anti-globalisation inhibits these activities.

I love the idea of buying goods online. I can buy rugs, baskets etc directly from Co-ops or from their small reps here in the UK, bypassing the international companies. I know by doing this, the people working at the co-ops are making money in a more equitable basis. To me, this is the benefit of globalisation. I can buy what I want or need.

When politicians talk of globalisation I’m pretty sure this is not what they are thinking of. They are thinking of Microsoft et al.

Globalisation can open the world of different cultures to us. Different peoples. Instead, we have the spread of a uniform McD’s.

The reality of it is this.
Textile work moved from the UK to China, since the workforce there are “willing to work for 10 bob and a bag of rice”.

We are left with no industry.

They begin to aspire to improved working conditions and wages. Now the Chinese want cars and consumer goods.

So the company will find a country where the resources are “willing to work for 10 bob and a bag or rice”.

The cycle continues. It is a means of driving the price of resources down.

As to movement of people. People will only move if:

a) A sense of adventure or a desire to experience something very new.
I’ve done that a couple of times. Only one member of my extended family has even moved south to England let along abroad. Even as a sense of adventure, it is expensive – are you really going to ship your pots pans and all the other bits with you? No you buy all over again. And it is so hard to leave your family and walk into that airport, even when it is a free choice.
Without kids I can make that choice much more easily. If I had kids, I just wouldn’t have moved. I’d have been giving up a support network, and that would just be one of how many issues?

b) Desperation.
The Polish tradesmen didn’t come here for the weather!
12 adults living in a home meant for 2 adults and 2 kids (at a squeeze) isn’t what anyone dreams of, is it?

Globalisation of labour can work in some industries. The space industry for example. Scientists and engineers all working together for a specific project. The Center For Disease Control is another, highly specialist organisation that demands mobility of employees. I can’t think of one industry where it is really necessary other than those very small, highly specialised industries.

Nursing, building, medicine, marketing, bakers, etc. None of them should really be left to international movement of labour should they? They are all jobs that we all need, regardless of country.

The details are what are important.

Europe is the only place where internal border control has been removed. Some East African countries are in the processing of doing so now. The effects of implementation, I fear will cause huge political rows when they realise exactly what they have done. No one in Scotland would seriously walk with their families and belongings to Cornwall to find work. They will in Africa.

Movement of vast numbers of people has two effects. The home nation has a gulf left behind. When the young move, who will look after the elderly?

The receiving nation magically must find additional hospitals, housing etc.

None of these costs are met by the employer. Why not? He has saved himself a training bill by not training the local population. So the receiving country is paying for local unemployment and the supply of increased services.

But remember, Europe does not have uniform labour policies

e) Commitment to an Open Global Economy

What I don’t understand is this. Until you reach a point where everything from a bottle of milk, through a pair of jeans or a lawnmower to a car or a house is the same price in every country in the world and a person is paid the same wage for performing the same task no matter of where he or she is located, how can you have a world market or a true global economy. What is disposable rubbish to one person will be a valuable treasure to another. Someone is always going to be at a disadvantage. Its an impossibility surely?

The corporate environment is covered in red tape because they will always put profits first.

Have you seen an African building site? From Egypt to Tanzania, flip flops for the workers are optional – now that made me think wht that country would be like with no Health and Safety!

On the other side of the coin, I’ve seen many people look to home-made soaps as a way of earning a little money. In the UK, no one does it because the regulations and insurance requirements are horrendous. It would be illegal for me to make my own soap (as easy making bread) and give it as gifts…

I sometime wonder about people relocation. I sometimes think that corporations are isolated from the effects.

1. broken extended families – grannies teach young mums how to look after their kids.
It is grannie who tells a young mum that a rash is nothing to worry about, or that the baby needs a doctor, now.
Older people become isolated when the family have moved afar, so greater costs to local government. I’ve no data to support this, though it is pretty obvious. I could think of many other impacts too.

2. Desire for companies to ‘be close to centre’ leading to an imbalance in UK economy’.

Why on earth did Glaxo move to Stephenage – what was wrong with Cumbria or Wales or somewhere further away?

Re red tape for small companies. A lot of French companies are full of praise concerning the ease of creating a company in the UK.

On the issue of globalisation through we need to address seriously the issue of taxes, where are they being paid, companies registered in one country to fax purposes etc, in the same way we need to address the Non-dom issue

Re the two types of stock market. I think that if banks are ‘split’ bak to how they used to be then the Casino gambler can play among themselves

Some negatives:
a)Inhumane exploitation of workers
b)Outsourcing where the service deteriorates
c)Unemployment of workers in the country that previously produced the goods or service
d)Exploitation of a country's natural resources permitted by governments with a short-term view and neglecting to ensure better legacies for present and future generations of the local people

A government needs to engage in short- medium- and long-term man/womanpower planning to try to balance the local supply and demand for human resources. Does our country do this?

But there will always be shortages or surpluses in a patchwork pattern. Job centres mainly match jobs to suitable people. If it was easier for people to relocate more easily, it would help. In the old days, you could stay with the same company for life. Now, due to increasing rates of change we are forced to re-train as jobs change or fall away.

Life in the corporate environment today imposes huge challenges to management. Government red tape is a burden – small business feels it is excessive – do they have a case?