It was not my first foray into Europe; I was born in the “Old World” and spent the first twelve years of my life there, so technically I am a European.  I entered this world in Poland, behind what was then called the Iron Curtain, imagined by many in the West to be a pulverized industrial landscape full of smokestacks, with a statue of Lenin gracing every corner.  To some extent it was true, but the European cultural and architectural heritage managed to remind the visitors that they were still in Europe. Poland is actually located in the geographic heart of the old continent, so put your Cold War blinders away- this is central, not eastern Europe.  Now it is a normal democratic and capitalist country, containing an area the size of Arizona within its borders, although still much poorer than its western neighbors and well, imagine that, even Arizona itself.  However, globalization is working steadily to elevate the standard of living and negate the adverse effects two World Wars and an almost half-century of hibernation under communism have had upon the country and its people. 

Indeed, if you visited Poland barely fifteen years ago, just as it was emerging from the communist slumber, you will not recognize the place now.  Gone are the dreary state owned stores where everything other than bread and vinegar were in perennially short supply.  Gleaming huge supermarkets stocking a vast array of imported and domestic products dominate the cities, giving both open air markets and small shops a run for their money.  In larger cities, huge indoor malls boasting hundreds of chic boutiques attract droves of shoppers, some coming not just to shop, but to also eat out in fancy restaurants or gape at illuminated fountains and tropical topiary.  The streets are congested, as thousands of families buy their first car every year, with the more affluent adding a second family vehicle to cater to a more hectic lifestyle.  Many roads are being repaved and widened, even as the countrywide construction of toll motorways gathers momentum.  Catering to all those motorists are countless new gas stations and car dealerships that threaten to replicate in Poland the quintessential American landscape of endless strip malls.  Even the urban fabric of city life is changing, with newly hip downtowns becoming the abode of banks and other financial institutions, while single family houses surrounded by gardens are drawing the nascent middle class away from living in high-rise concrete flats that were the supreme achievement of socialism.

The countryside is changing as well, if not as quickly or profoundly as the cities. Almost everybody now has the telephone, electricity and running water, most farmers have tractors and other useful farm machinery.  Many hitherto dirt tracks are getting paved in asphalt to make access to other villages and nearby cities easier.  Numerous aristocratic palaces and manors were renovated to become the abodes of the nouveaux riche elites, while some wealthier peasants had morphed into huge landowners, efficiently farming on hundreds of acres and hiring their erstwhile neighbors as workers. 

Of course, prosperity is not evident everywhere, as there are huge numbers of people barely making ends meet, working menial jobs or not finding any work at all.  Unemployment is particularly apparent in the small towns and the countryside, where the collapse of state run farms and the disappearance of heavy industry have caused much hardship.  The growing service sector manages to absorb at least some superfluous industrial workers and peasants, but for some life remains a struggle. 

What caused this profound change in the Polish economy and the appearance of the country?  Yes, it is the process many people in the affluent West love to hate, globalization.  Long gone are the days where most countries tended to be self-sufficient in manufacturing and jealously guarded their marketplace from foreign products.  National governments made it difficult for foreign companies to invest money in their country, and enacted high tariffs to benefit domestic producers.  These unnatural obstacles to free trade kept domestic prices up, reduced the range and availability of many goods and services and promoted the retention of uncompetitive and inefficient industries.  Communism was the supreme variant of protectionism, and as such failed most miserably. 

Globalization, which has been going on for a few decades now among Western nations, is steadily working as a great equalizer.  It is now a distant past when the United States was a lonely island of prosperity among the sea of poverty and despair.  There are now quite a few countries enjoying a high standard of living.  Many poor countries are catching up as well - seeing the rapid growth of western investment in Poland, which seeks to tap a source of still cheap labor and new consumer markets, I cannot fail to be impressed by a corresponding rise in living standards.  In fact, the domestic resources of Polish capital would fail to effect the same kind of profound change that I had described before.  This holds true for most emerging markets, and who knows, perhaps in twenty or thirty years the flow of my compatriots into America will dry up, or even be reversed. 

While it is true that western companies pay low wages to many workers in the developing world, they create jobs that would otherwise be non-existent or paying worse still.  For people living in the United States, globalization means not just the siphoning off of manufacturing jobs overseas, it offers American consumers the opportunity to buy a wide assortment of cheap products made in Asia that would otherwise be out of reach for many in this country.

It is true that globalization, such as any other worldwide economic phenomenon, has its good and bad aspects.  However, it is unquestionable that its positive effects far outweigh its faults.
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