Письменный перевод в сфере экономики и бизнеса. Княжева Е.А. - 10 стр.

                                        10
                     The Great Paradox of Globalisation


      Business leaders applaud it, protesters demonstrate against it, Thomas
Friedman writes a column about it and politicians tell us it is inevitable. As the
World Trade Organization celebrates it in the comparative peace of Qatar, it is
time to ask what exactly we mean by globalization.
      People first started to use the term in the 1980s, when American business
discovered the rest of the world. Of course, Ford and General Motors had owned
foreign car plants for more than 50 years. But their overseas facilities
manufactured dinky models for agoraphobic Europeans and were quite separate
from the mainstream American operations. US consumers had always imported
Burberrys and French perfumes but trade was and is a much lower percentage of
national income in the US than it is in any European country.
      There was a rude awakening. Ford and GM realized that Asian
competitors could make cars that were not only cheaper but also better. (Their
customers discovered it first). Other US firms such as Gap and Compaq realized
that an American brand and offshore manufacture made an unbeatable
combination in textiles and computers. Jobs migrated from the US to the
developing world.
      Within a short time, every large US company had a director of
international operations and every US business school a course in international
strategy. Some chief executives even predicted that their successors might have
worked overseas or might even not be American nationals. These fears mostly
proved to be exaggerated. The Ford family is still in the saddle.
      But globalization received a further boost from the collapse of the Soviet
Union. Where once there had been two great trading blocks in the world, now
there was only one. Or perhaps there were now three. Americans responded to
the growing influence of the European Union by establishing their own free
trade area and the rapidly growing Asian economies came closer together.