This article gives MCQs and a brief summary for revision of the chapter "Trade and Globalisation" which is the fourth chapter of the History textbook (Social Science) of Class 10 under the Nagaland Board of School Education (NBSE).
Contents
Introduction to the chapter Trade and Globalisation: The creation of a global world has a long history - of trade, of people looking for work, of migration, of capital movement, and much more.
- Early forms of globalisation existed during the Roman Empire, the Parthian Empire, and the Han Dynasty, when the Silk Route began in China, reached the Parthian empire's borders and continued on to Rome.
- The Islamic Age is another example of globalisation when Muslim traders established a global economy, resulting in the globalisation of crops, trade, knowledge, and technology, as well as later during the Mongol empire when there was greater integration along the Silk Road.
- Globalisation continued into the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when the Porcelain Continent was formed.
Trade and globalisation along the Silk Route
The Silk Route was a trade and cultural route that connected East and West through regions of the Asian continent, connecting traders, merchants, pilgrims, monks, soldiers, nomads, and urban dwellers from China to the Mediterranean Sea.
- Trade along the Silk Route played an important role in the development of the great civilisations of China, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, and the Indian subcontinent, laying the groundwork for the modern world.
- The disappearance of the Silk Route following the fall of the Mongol Empire was one of the primary motivators for Europeans to seek out the prosperous Chinese empire via another sea route.
Changes in the 19th century
Europe's late-nineteenth-century conquests brought about many economic, ecological, and social changes that brought colonized societies into the world economy.
- Social, economic, political, technological and cultural factors influenced societies in complex ways and reshaped external relations.
- In international economic exchanges, there are three types of movement or 'flows': the movement of trade or trades in goods, the movement of labour, or migration of individuals in search of employment and the movement of capital.
- During the nineteenth century, hundreds of thousands of Indians and Chinese workers worked on plantations, in mines, and on roads and railways.
- Indentured labourers were hired in India under contracts that stipulated that they would return to India after working on their employer's plantation for five years.
- In 1885, the big European powers met in Berlin to divide Africa between themselves. Both France and Belgium enlarged their territories in the late nineteenth century.
- The Germans and Belgians became new colonial powers. Additionally, the US became a colonial power in the late 1890s after taking over some colonies that had been occupied by Spain.
- The Caribbean islands (Trinidad, Surinam, Guyana), Fiji, and Mauritius were the main destinations for indentured migrants. Tamil migrants settled in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Malaya. It was often the hope of migrants to escape poverty or exploitation in their homelands that led them to work.
- Indentured labour was abolished in 1921 due to opposition from nationalist leaders.
The post-war international economic order
During the Second World War, the Axis Powers and the Allies fought each other. In the air, on land, and at sea, the war raged for many years.
- Massive economic losses and social unrest resulted from the war. Reconstruction took far too long and was far too difficult.
- Two critical influences shaped postwar reconstruction. The first was the United States' emergence as the world's dominant political, economic, and military power. The Soviet Union's dominance was the second.
Beginning of globalisation
Despite years of rapid growth, the postwar world was not without problems. As the world's primary currency, the US dollar no longer commands trust. Its value in relation to gold could not be sustained. This resulted in the demise of the fixed-rate system and the establishment of a floating-rate system.
- The international financial system began to change in the mid-1970s. Previously, developing countries could seek loans from international institutions. However, they were now compelled to borrow from western commercial banks.
- This resulted in repeated debt crises and increased poverty, particularly in Africa and Latin America.
- Unemployment in the industrial world began to rise in the mid-1970s and remained high until the early 1980s.
- MNCs began shifting production operations to low-wage Asian countries in the late 1970s.
Globalisation
Globalisation is the worldwide coordination of people's political, economic, social, scientific, and cultural lives that successfully aims to unite them on physical and psychological levels.
- The concept of globalisation emerged in the last decade of the twentieth century and is still being debated in the twenty-first.
- Outwardly, globalisation appears to have transformed the world into a "global village," but developing countries' desire to join the fraternity of developed nations has created a slew of problems, the most serious of which is poverty. The impact of globalisation will be discussed in this section.
- Under the guise of globalisation, poor and developing countries were forced to remove all non-tax barriers to international trade and reduce customs duties in order to achieve international parity. This benefited developed countries while costing underdeveloped countries millions of dollars.
- Some economists believe that liberalisation is harmful to social welfare. It can only produce better results if education, health care, and human resources are developed.
- If basic needs are not met, liberalisation is doomed to fail, as it was in Brazil, where capital concentrated in a few hands and the economy crashed. However, it was successful in China, where literacy rates have increased and healthcare and human resources have developed.
- It is unfortunate that only about 15% of people in highly industrialised countries have benefited from globalisation.
- They are pressuring developing countries to open their markets but are unwilling to make concessions to help them expand their exports. It is difficult to argue that globalisation is beneficial to the world's poor and developing nations.
Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs): Exercise
1. ‘Globalisation’ today mainly refers to:
Answer: (c) An economic system that has emerged in the last 50 years
2. The decision-making in the IMF and the World Bank is controlled by:
Answer: (a) All the member-nations of these two banks.
3. Multinational Corporations (MNC’s) are
Answer: (b) Large companies that operate in several countries at the same time
4. The IMF was established on
Answer: (a) December 27, 1945
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