
The steam has gone out of globalisation - prostoalex
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/01/24/the-steam-has-gone-out-of-globalisation
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jdpedrie
Globalization in the manner it has happened has lately struck me as akin to
drinking from a firehose. While it's led to an increased standard of living
(in the form of wages in the third world and lowered prices in the first), the
speed at which it happened caused displacement far faster than the cultures
could adapt.

If your industry disappears over 30 years, it's easy enough to stop hiring new
people and draw down as the old retire. If it dies in five years, the
dislocation is immense and it becomes nearly impossible to cope. The same
problem of rapid change plays itself out in the developing world in different
forms; rapid urbanization, pollution, dislocation from traditional ways of
life.

If, as the article suggests, globalization has indeed slowed, perhaps the
breathing space that slowdown provides will in the long run be a good thing.
Deal with the problems we've created before doubling down on the instigating
issue.

~~~
rossdavidh
I have often thought that globalization has often been a means of sending 1st
World volumes of manufacturing into places with 3rd World environmental,
health, and safety laws. It took us time to build up our EHS standards to
their current level, and our volume of manufacturing took time to build up
also. If all demand were satisfied in countries with equivalent levels of EHS
to the target market, the amount of pollution, etc. would plummet quite a bit
just from that alone.

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gamblor956
Good. Globalization was always about enriching the people at the top, using
the excuse of benefiting the poorest.

But that thin veneer no longer hides the truth: globalization destroys both
developing economies and the middle class of developed economies.

~~~
dantheman
Really?

During globalization we've had the fastest and greatest reduction of poverty
on earth. Seems like a benefit to the poorest to me.

~~~
dpwm
> During globalization we've had the fastest and greatest reduction of poverty
> on earth.

Really?

I've seen this claimed but I've never seen it substantiated.

~~~
orangecat
[https://www.politifact.com/global-
news/statements/2016/mar/2...](https://www.politifact.com/global-
news/statements/2016/mar/23/gayle-smith/did-we-really-reduce-extreme-poverty-
half-30-years/) . You can debate how to define "poverty", and I'd certainly
agree that somebody making $1.91/day isn't terribly well off, but real income
has been consistently rising especially in the last 30 years.

~~~
cbHXBY1D
Except a number of researchers and academics dispute that fact. Many say that
it's a PR campaign for the World Bank and that it doesn't tell the whole
story. If you raise the poverty line just a little higher to $5 then abject
poverty has been increasing.

[https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/974966050625413122](https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/974966050625413122)

[https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2018/8/30/the-moral-
egregio...](https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2018/8/30/the-moral-
egregiousness-of-poverty-is-worse-than-ever-before-in-history)

~~~
bryanlarsen
Your own link says that even that has fallen from 71.8% in 1990 to 58.1% in
2013.

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rossdavidh
Or, just maybe, there is an optimum amount of globalization, somewhere in
between total isolationism and complete outsourcing, and the world overshot,
so we're backing it up, just a bit.

~~~
benj111
Sounds reasonable.

What's the difference between global trade and domestic trade though?

Seems to me that differing standards are the problem, rather than
globalisation per se?

~~~
rossdavidh
Certainly it seems plausible that trade between the U.S.A. and Mexico might be
problematic in a way that trade between the U.S.A. and Canada is not. But
there is another issue with international trade.

What restrains the urge of the top 100 corporate elite to pay their labor as
little as possible, and get laws (e.g. anti-union, no minimum wage, etc.)
passed accordingly, is that each of those 100 wants the other 99 to pay THEIR
employees well, because the employees of the other 99 are his customers. He
doesn't want to pay his own employees well, but he will collude with the other
98 to make sure each of the others pays their employees well enough they can
buy his car/suit/food/appliance/etc.

But what if he can have the employees in another country, pay them pennies,
and have his customers in this country? Or, if he's on the poor country side
of things, what if he can just find rich customers in another country? Now he
has no reason to worry about insuring that his peers' employees are paid well.
They're no longer his customers.

But wait, how will there still be wealthy customers in his country? There
won't. But, no problem, we can loan them the money to buy my stuff.

It works until it doesn't. But if your employees and your customers are drawn
from the same pool, then your exploitative greed is checked by all your greedy
peers' exploitative greed. This is why Henry Ford and Andrew Carnegie were
both in favor of higher wages for factory workers; it wasn't because they were
nice guys. But, more recently, the manufacturing happens elsewhere. This
removes one of the only checks on the power of wealthy elites to apply the
screws to their employees (legally or otherwise).

------
microdrum
Elsewhere on HN: [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-davos-meeting-solar-
gcl-i...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-davos-meeting-solar-gcl-
idUSKCN1PI2OQ)

Chinese ripped off U.S.-based solar, went crazy, drove margins to 0%,
overproduced, dumped in U.S., reduced U.S. profit incentive in solar
development, and are now going to restrict supply to try to get prices up.

Meantime, we've had less serious R&D investment in solar than we would have
had otherwise.

So, no, globalization doesn't always work especially when one of the other
majors is a state-directed Communist country.

~~~
jotm
Heh, Amazon

~~~
microdrum
What do you mean?

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vertline3
Well, to be honest, I only could see part of the story and then it asked for
me to subscribe. But anyway, I don't have anything else to add.

~~~
dang
Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

