35. The challenges and threats posed by globalization. Globalization in the economic, political, social, cultural spheres

The term "globalization" became a scientific, informational, political, and now already in everyday circulation since the second half of last century. In the beginning it was used mainly for global problems facing mankind, and then, with the development of economic and other global

integration processes, was applied to a large

Economic globalization has become all-encompassing self-perpetuating process, a kind of chain reaction, which, is branching and accelerating, making its way through all obstacles.

Globalization is happening in the political sphere. The most striking example is - the United Nations, linking the countries in various fields of life. International intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations for various purposes have multiplied. There are inter-state alliances, in one way or another, politically and economically integrated countries.

Globalization has affected the social sphere, although the intensity of these processes depends largely on the economic opportunities of integration components. Social rights, previously available only to the population of developed countries, gradually migrate to citizens of the developing countries. A growing number of countries have developing civil society, the middle class, where social norms of quality of life are unified to some extent.

The remarkable event in the past 100 years has been the globalization of culture on the basis of the tremendous growth of the cultural exchange between countries, the development of the industry of mass culture, the leveling of tastes and preferences of the public. The globalization of culture was also a reflection of cosmopolitisation of being, linguistic assimilation, dissemination on the planet of the English language as global means of communication, and other processes.

36. Global Problems of Mankind. The problem of technological security.

Global problems of humanity or civilization have been understood truly only in the second half of  XX century, when the interdependence of nations and peoples increased sharply by globalization,  and unresolved problems appeared most clearly and destructive. Furthermore, the perception of  some of the problems came only when mankind has accumulated vast potential of knowledge that  made these problems visible. The presence of outstanding global problems characterizes the high  risk of existence of modern civilization, which emerged at the beginning of the XXI century. J.B. Lamarck Prediction comes true, who wrote in 1820: "One can perhaps say that the destiny of man  as it is to destroy his race, after making the earth uninhabitable." The emergence of global  problems was foreseen by an academician Vladimir Vernadsky, who warned, in particular, about  the "geological force" of society, which can be destructive.  Now the global problems attract universal attention of international organizations, states, public  associations, scientists, and ordinary citizens. In May 1998, the summit leaders of the Group of  Eight countries paid particular attention to this. Head of UK, Germany, Italy, Russia, USA,  France and Japan at a meeting in Birmingham (UK) were engaged in seeking solutions to global  problems which, they said, "largely determine the lives of people in each of our countries."