Globalization is something of a blanket term for a number of related changes related to and largely spread by a global economy, changes that involve less distance (in the non-physical sense) and an accelerating collapse of various kinds off distance, be they economic, cultural, environmental, or technological. Global economic linkages have been in place for centuries, but now they are realized in many cases not at the speed of ships but at that of light. In terms of economics globalization means that the economies and the markets they generate internally and externally become integrated such that the exchange and transfer of goods and services as well as money and workers across national boundaries is taking place on a much bigger scale and …show more content…
This is especially the case for streams and transfers of information and data because of how computers speed up various processes and decisions and ten send out the results over the Internet (Friedman, 2006). But such general observations and theorizing limit our understanding of globalization and some of its mechanisms. If we examine a particular industry and its markets in closer detail, than can make our understanding much more concrete. We can then more carefully interrogate and improve the different ideas and categories with which we try to grasp globalization. One such industry that seems to almost automatically suggest itself is the worldwide energy industry, specifically petroleum and natural gas …show more content…
These governments are usually authoritarian oligarchies or even monarchies, and even when nominally democratic a certain set of elites has disproportionate power because of their control. One aspect of what has been called the curse of oil is that these elites dependent for their power and wealth on oil often have an incentive to slow down development of other economic sectors so as to have no political competition or challenge from other elites springing up from other, new sources of national wealth (Amuzegar 2001, Gylfason 2001). These political and economic distortions are a good example of globalization and one set of its effects because without the continuous availability and use of different markets and communications such petro-governments would not have come about and could not sustain themselves. Another aspect of what we term globalization here is how in turn these societies and their particular regimes then have drastic effects on the rest of the world just as globalized energy production and commerce has had a drastic effect upon them. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting States and its oil embargo in response to the 1973 Yom Kippur war in the Middle East, Russia’s annexation of Crimea (and also its large underwater petroleum deposits in the Black Sea), and the development of