Immigration and globalization

Globalization is seen as the growing (and in some versions the unprecedented) international integration of economic life, involving a major rise in trade and foreign direct investment relative to production, an enormous surge in international financial transactions, and the growth of global economic institutions such as the multinational corporation and international organizations such as the European Union, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Bank of International Settlements, the Group of Seven, and so on. Many believe that this process is diminishing the economic power of the national state; others emphasize the tendencies toward the globalization of culture – McDonald's, karaoke machines, and satellite dishes. Some of these trends are indeed strong, but most accounts of globalization are probably exaggerated. The globalization of trade and direct investment is not unprecedented; the increases in overall trade and investment are actually highly concentrated in a few countries and leave many poor countries completely out of the process; very few firms seem to be global in a qualitatively “new” sense; I doubt that the national state has lost as much power as many of our rulers would like us to believe.

The impression is widespread that the global movement of people is part and parcel of the broader process of economic and cultural globalization. Labor and other markets are seen as increasingly globalized through the international movement of both workers and capital.