参考译文
What Is Globalization?
Globalization is a term for the emergence of a global society in which economic, political, environmental, and cultural events in one part of the world quickly come to have significance for people in other parts of the world. Globalization is the result of advances in communication, transportation, and information technologies. It describes the growing economic, political, technological, and cultural linkages that connect individuals, communities, businesses, and governments around the world. Globalization also involves the growth of multinational corporations and transnational corporations. The international institutions that oversee world trade and finance play an increasingly important role in this era of globalization.
Although most people continue to live as citizens of a single nation, they are culturally, materially, and psychologically engaged with the lives of people in other countries as never before. Distant events often have an immediate and significant impact. Items common to our everyday lives - such as the clothes we wear, the food we eat, and the cars we drive - are the products of globalization.
The most dramatic evidence of globalization is the increase in trade and the movement of capital (stocks, bonds, currencies, and other investments). From 1950 to 2001 the volume of world exports rose by 20 times. By 2001 world trade amounted to a quarter of all the goods and services produced in the world. As for capital, in the early l970s only $ 10 billion to $ 20 billion in national currencies were exchanged daily. By the early part of the 2lst century more than $ 1.5 trillion were traded daily to support the expanded levels of trade and investment
Most experts attribute globalization to improvements in communication, transportation, and information technologies. For example, not only currencies, but also stocks, bonds, and other financial assets can be traded round the clock and around the world due to innovations in communication and information processing. A three-minute telephone call from New York City to London in 1930 cost more than $ 300 (in year 2000 prices) , making instant communication very expensive. Today the cost is insignificant.
Advances in communication and information technologies have helped slash the cost of processing business orders by well over 90 percent. Using a computer to do banking on the Internet, for example, costs the banking industry pennies per transaction instead of dollars by traditional methods. Over the last third of the 20th century the real cost of computer processing power fell by 35 percent on average each year. People can be almost anywhere and remain in instant communication with their employers, customers, or families 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Advances in communications instantly unite people around the globe. For example, communications satellites allow global television broadcasts to bring news of faraway events, such as wars and national disasters as well as sports and other forms of entertainment. The Internet, the cell phone, and the fax machine permit instantaneous communication. Improvements in transportation are also part of globalization. The world becomes smaller due to next-day delivery by jet airplane. Even slow, oceangoing vessels have streamlined transportation and lowered costs due to innovations such as containerized shipping.
Advances in information technologies have also lowered business costs. The global corporation Cisco Systems, for example, is one of the world's largest companies as measured by its stock market value. Yet Cisco owns only three factories to make the equipment used to help maintain the Internet. Cisco subcontracts the rest of its work to other companies around the world.
The lowering of costs that has enabled U. S. companies to locate abroad has also made it easier for foreign producers to locate in the United States. Two-thirds of the automobiles sold in North America by Japan's Toyota Motor Company are built in North America
Not only do goods, money, and information move great distances quickly, but also more people are moving great distances as well. Migration is a major feature of this era of globalization. Remittances sent home by workers to their home countries have become an important source of income for many countries.
