Conventionally considered positive aspects of globalisation

• Growing volume of globally tradable goods.

• Speed and complexity of direct investment flows.

• Economic growth of originally developing countries (especially South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Hong Kong), which nowadays have highly developed economies. Globalisation encourages development of other countries, which joined globalisation processes later on and have begun to become globally important players (China, Brazil, India), but also countries of lesser global importance (Indonesia, the Philippines, Mexico).

• Growing consumption: Consumption represented 12 thousand billion (12 trillion) USD in 1975, at the beginning of the ‘historic’ era of globalisation; it was 24 thousand billion (24 trillion) USD in 1998. Compare the global consumption of 1,500 billion (1.5 trillion) USD in 1900.

• Establishment of a relatively homogenous middle class of professional elite in Asia and Latin America.

• New supranational bodies have been set up in the area of power of political organisation, or the powers of the existing ones have been reinforced (the European Union, NAFTA, ASEAN, etc.).

• The so-called ‘second modern’, or post-modern (trans-local) culture appears, open to global influences thanks to the effects of mass media, as opposed to the ‘first modern’ (national, nationally centripetal) culture, withdrawn in itself.