Authentic Costs Extra: The Cultural Price of Global Trade

A cursory introduction to trade dynamics reveals the tremendous cultural ramifications inherent in the transfer of goods on a global scale. This examination leaves one with a multitude of questions, such as: what is the cultural cost of globalized trade, where goods manufactured in multi-national production processes become a continental mash-up, reliant on consumer trends and corporate powers, all served by the lowest bidders? Is this cultural homogeneity unnatural – the result of capitalism and greed – or the organic process of an adaptive species? One might also ask how global demand for a product might actually change the culture of its origin.