
Globalisation: the rise and fall of an idea that swept the world - lemming
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/14/globalisation-the-rise-and-fall-of-an-idea-that-swept-the-world
======
exelius
Honestly, for all the hand-wringing over globalization, I think it has been a
necessary stopgap for the wholesale destruction of low-skilled jobs by
automation that's coming in the next few decades. It's forced us to recognize
the problems over the last several decades: the structure of human
civilization is changing quickly, and people don't adapt that fast.

Regardless of the societal cost, companies individually have to retain
competitive advantage / parity. Automation will be a boon for individual
companies, which means it will be an arms race among competitors in an
industry. Tragedy of the commons and all.

So it doesn't matter if globalization is good or bad. It is our reality
because individual companies will always be looking to gain an advantage
whether that's through offshoring or automation. The impact of automation will
be far worse for the individual in society than the impact of globalization.

All of this leads to even more wealth inequality as the value in the economy
is increasingly captured by capital rather than labor. I think we're in for a
messy few decades as we figure out how to restructure our societal
institutions to work in the new world.

~~~
anotherbrownguy
>The impact of automation will be far worse for the individual in society than
the impact of globalization.

I have found this sentiment very common but I haven't heard a good enough
argument to support it.

If we banned all sorts of artificial energy sources like fossil fuels, solar,
nuclear etc. no automation would be possible and even the ones we have would
be gone. This would mean that everyone would have unlimited "jobs" (because
everything currently done by machines would have to be done by hand if
possible) while the standards of living would for everyone would drop
significantly.

So, lets say we started from that position and gradually started allowing
limited amount of fuel and automation that amount of fuel would be able to do.
While this would mean that some people would have to lose jobs and switch to
something else, the standard of living overall would be increased.

At what point would you say that there is "too much automation"?

~~~
ksec
When I was reading this, a stupid idea that just pops out of my mind. May be
we should tax industrial / business uses of electricity? AI, Robots, Machine
Automation are nothing without its power. We cant tax food for human
consumption, we can surely tax power for machine consumption?

( But Of course globalisation means they will move to lower energy country. )

~~~
exelius
How would you stop companies from just erecting solar panels and operating off
the grid? Certainly generating your own power starts to make sense at some
scale of data center power usage. Build a data center in the desert next to a
few square miles of solar panels - companies are already doing this even
without an energy tax.

That's honestly why solar will replace grid power very soon: it's near
impossible to regulate because you can't cut off access to the sun. It's the
difference between buying a fish at the market for dinner and buying a fishing
pole.

The more I think on this though, the more I realize that corporations are
probably going to become wealthier and stronger than most countries' ability
to regulate them. They already have too much influence in government.

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Animats
This is worth reading. If globalization is being questioned even at Davos,
it's a major change.

Not mentioned in the article: China. China now has an official policy of
autarky. It is a national objective to be as independent as possible of
outside sources.[1] That's already been achieved with the Internet, using the
Great Firewall of China to help China-based services compete. Google,
Facebook, Skype - all blocked in China. Microsoft Windows past XP is often a
special version for China for which the Chinese government has the source
code.[2]

[1]
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/a-national...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/a-nationalist-
china-unsettles-foreign-
companies/2015/09/07/30bbf9a4-ed01-4b15-a510-4e513e96a15c_story.html?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.145f1c834fdd)
[2] [https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2017/03/red-f...](https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2017/03/red-flag-windows-microsoft-modifies-windows-os-for-chinese-
government/)

~~~
creaghpatr
It's interesting to speculate whether companies like Alibaba, WeChat, etc.
would form in other countries that didn't allow Amazon/Google.

On the other side of the coin, Amazon and Google have probably enabled the
development of other businesses in those countries. I hesitate to use the US
as an example though since Amazon and Google are from the US.

~~~
Animats
Alibaba started as a business-to-business service. China needed that - it
enabled dealing with remote companies, which wasn't a big part of business
culture. The reputation and verification service made that feasible. Alibaba
has "Onsite check", where someone from Alibaba goes to the site and looks at
the factory, and checks records to see who really owns the factory. Like Dun
and Bradstreet, but integrated with ads and shopping.

WeChat is a comprehensive mobile-first service. China needed that because it's
a mobile-first country.

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diego_moita
Globalization is just a new name for a very old process. It started long
before Vasco da Gama started European Imperialism in 1497. It had some very
bad moments before (e.g.: Great Depression) but it never stopped and will not
stop.

What drives globalization isn't the WTO, the Davos elites or evil capitalists.
It is technology: steam ships, refrigeration, containers in ports,
telecommunications, etc.

Other technologies will come and will accelerate this process. We will surely
go beyond "global supply chains", regardless of what orange demagogues think
of it.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I agree. Globalization is what happens when, thanks to technological progress,
you can no longer ignore entities on the other end of the planet. Technology
is an enabler - once you make a new thing possible, people _will_ do it. You
can try and oppose this process, but it's expensive and probably always doomed
to failure anyway. China is a case in point - all that government effort and
they still ended up pretty westernized today.

To stop globalization, one would have to revert the entire planet to before
industrial revolution. Which is entirely possible with e.g. nuclear weapons,
but I don't think anyone sane would want that to happen.

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eksemplar
Globalization isn't falling, it's been a constant throughout human history and
will likely remain so until we kill ourselves by climate.

Who globalization benefits, however, changes from time to time and right now
the west is being dethroned.

Ironically things like nationalism only makes even more room available for
other players who are more than willing to fill your void.

~~~
exelius
Actually the west disproportionately benefits from globalization, but only the
capital class. Anyone who doesn't own stock in a global company gets left
behind -- and something like 75% of Americans own no stocks at all.

------
bwb
Globalization is a baby in the grand scope of things, we are in period 1 of
1000. I've got friends around the world, I do business with people around the
world. That is not going to change.

------
projectramo
I doubt there has been any time within the lifetime of anyone on hacker news
where people have not worried about jobs being taken by robots. (And sometimes
by other people).

I don't think the "theory" of globalization has an impact on that.

There is an economic theory -- acknowledged in the article -- that people,
given education, will find the jobs that are created.

Is there any reason to believe this economic theory does not hold?

This article seems to claim that politically, the idea has lost currency but
the real question is: what is the reality? Can we educate people into jobs or
not?

