Globalization is the buzz of the new millennium. The quality and impact of globalization has been the subject of extensive debate and concern in economic circles since the mid-1990s. The proponents and opponents construe major theories and examples to evolve the theology of globalization on grounds of being attributed as ‘good’ or ‘bad’.

Proponents of globalization consider the goodness of the term and consider it as an analogy of information exchange- which is responsible for higher standards of living, increase in purchasing power (West), better scope of cultural development and triumph of democracy over communism. While the opponents consider is as another form of imperialism- a mechanism that encourages corporations to relocate their factors in pursuit of cheap labor as well as flexible environmental laws. Moreover, they argue that even in the developed world, adverse globalization leads to insecurity of unskilled workers as the corporations shift their base to low wage economies (Broad & Cavanagh 22)

There is nothing new about globalization, if by that we mean the patching together of different regions of the earth through economic and cultural exchange; or political domination and alliance. Immanuel Wallerstein, whose book The Modern World-System marks an important point of departure for recent thought on globalization, argues that the system became firmly established in the sixteenth century, at the time when European hegemony began its long process of entrenchment (Wallerstein 4).

Globalization as a concept and as an empirical phenomenon has coagulated endless debate. How is Globalization defined? When did Globalization begin? Whether the impact of Globalization on local societal, economic, and cultural structures are good or bad? There are four divergent views of globalization. Some critics consider globalization as an ideology, a myth, for nation-states, while some critics argue that globalization is nothing new, for as Rick Wolf contends in Europe and the People without History, the process of globalization began with the beginning of the world. According to Wolf, the Neolithic Age already had global trade routes: Polynesian products traveled to Africa and Asian pottery pieces were scattered all over the world. Some scholars argue that globalization began with the emergence of colonial capitalism—

or in the year of 1492. Still others take globalization as a fairly new historical phenomenon, whose inauguration is marked by the end of Cold War (Wang & Xie 1)

Globalization can be defined as the starting point of a truly modern world-system. Another definition though not so praiseworthy is that it is the prodigal outcome of the brutal world wars in this century and was enough to ascertain that the earth has been for some time

undergoing a process of increasingly intense integration. In the sense, it is an intense coherence that has been immeasurably enhanced and made an intimate fact of everyday life by advances in transportation and communication (Buell 5). Globalization is the shift towards a more integrated and interdependent world economy. It has two basic components: the globalization of markets and the globalization of production. Today it is an overarching international system shaping the domestic policies and foreign relations of virtually every country, and we need to understand it as such.

The globalization of markets refers to the merging of historically distinct and separate markets into one huge global marketplace. The globalization of production refers to the tendency among firms to source goods and services from locations around the globe to take advantage of national differences in the cost and quality of factors of production (such as labor, energy, land and capital). By doing so companies hope to lower their overall cost structure/ or improve the quality or functionality of their product offering, thereby allowing them to compete more effectively (Katsioloudes & Hadjidakis 20)