Cost and Benefit of Globalization:Lesson Learned from Indonesian History

This paper is aimed at investigating the impact of globalization in Indonesia from long term recorded history. The methodology in this paper is focused on the literature survey with the qualitative analysis. The result shows that the presence of globalization in Indonesia tends to put the relationship between Indonesia (Nusantara or Netherland Indies) and the great power/globalizer as the Periphery-Centre (Core) relationship. It is shown that the globalizer influences Indonesia and not the other way around. The positive effect on Indonesia is globalization could increase people’s wealth and enrich Indonesia’s civilization without losing the real Indonesian culture. However, the presence of negative effect, could be very devastating, such as war and internal conflicts, in the time of clash among great powers/globalizers or in the time of changing time of influence from old great power to the new one.