Global Health Watch 1 in one file

Health and globalization | A1
in 2002, more than double the amount in 1990 – have become an important
source of foreign currency for many countries (Kapur and McHale 2003). Nevertheless,
large-scale migration remains ‘the missing flow in today’s globalization’
(Dollar 2002), mainly because of policy changes in one dominant nation,
the US, ‘which has switched from a protectionist welcoming immigrants to a
free trader restricting their entrance’ (Williamson 2002).
Globalization is not new. The history of humankind has been one of
pushing against borders, exploring, expanding, trading, conquering and assimilating
(Diamond 1997). By the 16th century the geographic and resource
endowments of Europe, combined with new sailing and navigation technologies,
ushered in the first truly global era of colonization and trade. Globalization
came to a temporary halt in the early 20th century, with two world wars
and the Great Depression. The ensuing devastation spurred the creation of
new international organizations to promote reconstruction and development,
in an effort to avoid the economic shocks that partly underpinned both wars.
The UN would provide political oversight to global peace and development.
The IMF would maintain global economic stability by helping countries with
balance of payments problems. The World Bank would provide concessional
(low interest) loans or grants for postwar reconstruction and, later, for global
development. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) would be
a venue for negotiating the removal of protectionist barriers to international
trade.
Globalization was back on track, even if its new rules and institutions represented
the interests of the world’s dominant, victorious nations, and even if
international trade as a percentage of global economic output did not reach
levels characteristic of the late 19th and early 20th centuries until the 1990s
(Cameron and Stein 2000). The collapse of the USSR and the fall of the Berlin
Wall, marking the end of an ideological counterweight to capitalism, arguably
accelerated the pace of global market integration and certainly enhanced its
legitimacy.
International trade in goods is only one dimension of globalization. Several
other trends reveal how and why today’s globalization differs from earlier
eras.
The scale of international private financial flows resulting from capital market
liberalization. Aided by technologies that allow round-the-clock global trade
and new forms of finance capital such as hedge funds and derivatives, currency
transactions worth US$ 1.5–2 trillion occur daily. Much of this is speculative
portfolio money chasing short-term changes in currency valuations, rather than
foreign direct investment that may go into new productive capacity. The scale
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