Quartz, a news website, has a published an article on what it identifies as the major flaw in globalization: that the crossing of borders is framed in economic and logistical terms, not humanitarian ones. The issue at the heart of the story is the European Commission’s proposal to consider new visa requirements for US and Canadian visitors to the EU. The idea stems, in large part, from Washington’s refusal to grant visa free travel to many of the EU’s poorer members, including Romania. It also highlights what Quartz rightly identifies as the hypocrisy in how the West allows rich people virtually free movement across borders, whereas the poor are branded as economic migrants who face high barriers to entry. From the article:
One of the most iconic images of our open-world ideology is the fall of the Berlin Wall. But what could have been an opportunity to cement freedom of movement, association, and opportunity as global human rights instead became a symbol of the triumph of capitalism over communism. To this day, the notion of a world without walls is often framed in terms of trade and profit flows. This way of thinking has resulted, however inadvertently, in creating two different kinds of globalization: one for the rich, and another for the poor.
For more, visit Quartz.
Borderlands History 