The development of the ability to transport people, goods, visual images, sounds, texts, and information quickly and easily across great distances and political boundaries contributed to the globalizationof the world's economy and culture. There was a tendency for economic enterprises to target markets that are not just international (involving more than one country) but global (involving the whole world). Multinational companies not only sold their products in more than one country but also were officially registered as existing in several. The same dominant brands, chain stores, firms, and products were increasingly found all over the world. The same music on compact discs and cassettes, the same videos, and the same popular films are marketed, heard, and viewed almost everywhere. Even populations became globalized. There was a growing tendency for large numbers of people to flee from homelands that became economically, politically, or ideologically intolerable. They fled to new lands, where they formed minorities and increased the ethnic and racial diversity of their new homes. The populations of large Western cities became more fluid and diverse, microcosms that reflected the world at large. The globalization of commerce and culture also, to some extent, was an Americanization. American business was unusually capable of capitalizing on this globalization, in entering and often dominating new markets with its products and brands. American popular culture was disseminated and accepted worldwide, particularly music, cinema, and television. In the process, America's language became the dominant international language in diplomacy, commerce, science, and many other areas.
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Ivan Soll is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His Top 10 list also focuses on large-scale, far-reaching developments. He sounds a note of caution based on rapid world population growth and technological development, referring to our "tendency to pollute, or otherwise destroy without using, the very resources we so desperately need." |