It is not the end of globalization, but the beginning of the end of the free market.
On globalization101.org, globalization is described as “a process of interaction and integration among the people, companies, and governments of different nations, a process driven by international trade and investment and aided by information technology. This process has effects on the environment, on culture, on political systems, on economic development and prosperity, and on human physical well-being in societies around the world.”
In recent years, the activities that define globalization have not slackened their pace; on the contrary. What has deteriorated, though, is the legal medium through which ordinary citizens can influence the price of goods, services and labor.
On the one side, people living under authoritarian regimes such as China, Kazakhstan, Oman or Swaziland have virtually no say in it.
On the other side, democratic countries undergo a more intricate process by which certain regimes become illiberal and put into practice policies that undermine people’s civil liberties and the open society in general. Even in the few remaining open societies and democratic environments, an even more insidious process causes the main decision to be made by increasingly fewer people whose interests no longer coincide with those of the general public.
The result of this readjustment of local power and the renegotiation of the relations between all centers of power is a redistribution of wealth and/or potential access to wealth, where economic elites make sure they will preserve and increase their wealth whereas ordinary citizens will find it harder to make ends meet, which means lower standards of living, worse levels of well-being and poor education.
Two decades ago, the middle class man still found globalization funny enough to turn Princess Diana’s death into an opportunity to come up with a classic joke (here’s one of its versions).
At the turn of the millennium light bulbs burned out more often than today, technology was not as good as advertised, litter-droppers ruined beautiful neighborhoods, restaurants teemed with out-of-control children, fruit was far from perfect, and people were frequently disruptive, rude and noisy. They were not great times, but when something bad happened the middle class man (or woman, of course) was still hopeful and nurtured a good sense of humor jokingly blaming some Murphy’s law, one’s neighbors, international corporations, the Pope, the Irish/British/Polish/white man/black man etc. in random order.
Today, the middle class man doesn’t have time for stupid jokes anymore and blames globalization for every little mishap. After being let down by employers, banks, politicians, friends, family members and the elements, he rejects any story that doesn’t flatter him as fake news and no longer cares about the world and its opinions or problems.
The middle class man may not steer the Ship of State but he often sits in the copilot’s seat. And right now the middle class man seems to be willing to make a U-turn and stay clear of any path leading to globalization and its attendant troubles. But by the time he sees that Post-Globalization is a bewitched sea where the more you flee from globalization the deeper you sink into it, the middle class man will have understood what the Night Man’s cryptic message actually means.
I must say, still don’t get it. Globalization and easy global communication and information sharing are two related but distinct things. And people always complain about the little and big annoyances of life.
For most people on earth, life has gotten immeasurably better since 2000. Ok, maybe Syrians miss 2000 AD; but they are a special case.
We* don’t* have globalization. What we have is a bunch of preferential trading bloc. Like the EU or ASEAN or MERCOSUR or NAFTA (nown USMCA). PTB are the opposite of free trade and globalization since while they reduce internal barriers to trade they make many more to outsiders.
We do live in a globalized society, where our activities are related or involve in one way or another, more or less, the entire world. Instead of forming isolated communities, mankind is more interrelated and interconnected than it used to be. Unless one idealizes this type of interconnection, one can realized that in any community some members are more integrated than others and there are written and unwritten preferences and privileges. For instances, no matter how excluded some pariahs seem to be in certain societies, they still belong there and play a distinct role in those groups.
Globalization is not centralized and instantaneous, but gradual and scattered; it also comes with natural and artificial rules or protocols that organize interconnection so that this integration can appear fruitful and make sense to people.
No, they’re not and the definition I quoted in the OP shows it. Here’s another definition from a different source: Globalization is the process in which people, ideas and goods spread throughout the world, spurring more interaction and integration between the world’s cultures, governments and economies.
I doubt Walmart will run out of foreign manufactured goods but even if that happens it doesn’t mean globalization will have ended. I’m sure there have always been stores in North Korea that carry strictly North Korean merchandise. Has that affected globalization? Not much really.
There is an interesting aspect of globalization that may be worth mentioning: technological progress has globalized the world irreversibly. The end of globalization will only occur when people no longer have the means to interconnect. In the meantime, nations may choose to isolate themselves completely with no country willing to exchange goods or allow people’s free movement. It doesn’t matter. Of course, it would dramatically influence the extent to which countries would get globalized but globalization would still be there. It would only be a different type of globalization, with different rules and different participations.
No man is an island – human beings are meant to form communities. When two people know of each other’s existence and have the means to reach each other, a rapport will develop. Whether they decide to bond or to ignore each other is not relevant – they’re still interrelated, but the nature and extent of the relation are different.
Suppose the world consisted of a myriad of islands, each one inhabited by only one person. Imagine these islands were so far from one another that these people couldn’t possibly know about the existence of their peers. Under these circumstances interconnection and integration would never occur.
Suppose the people inhabiting these islands did know about one another’s existence but had no means by which to get to one another’s islands or to communicate with one another. It would practically be the same as in the previous model. These people still would not form a community.
Suppose further these island dwellers knew about one another and had the means to intercommunicate and visit one another but they chose not to. Imagine some islands’ shallows teemed with fish and its inhabitants refused to share even though the others were starving. Imagine some other islands developed volcanic activity and its dwellers were in danger to perish because everyone else preferred to isolate themselves. In fact, the survivors may even enjoy the possibility of owning more than just one island once neighbors have died. Well, in this last hypothetical case all these humans would definitely form a group, only this community would show a ruthless type of interconnection just like the one manifested by schools of cannibalistic squids who live in a squid-eat-squid world.
My point? Globalization is inevitable because it is a moral decision too.
