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Comment by flukus | Hacker News Reader

> The costs of European political division into multiple competing states were substantial: they included almost incessant warfare, protectionism, and other coordination failures. Many scholars now believe, however, that in the long run the benefits of competing states might have been larger than the costs. In particular, the existence of multiple competing states encouraged scientific and technological innovation.

I wonder if this is still true today and if globalism will ultimately make us worse off?

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That quote doesn't say that "political competition" was the best approach to innovation, nor that globalism would be worse. Merely that the proverbial ROI of competing states wasn't negative.

More importantly, it seems that the fragmentation in Europe allowed "peer pressure" to avoid descents into authoritarianism that would have limited intellectual innovation.

And that fragmentation did not fragment "the market". ("Political fragmentation existed alongside a remarkable intellectual and cultural unity.")

So: as long as globalization doesn't limit individual intellectual innovation, it might be a good think because of global unification. Competition helps drive innovation, but it doesn't have to be state competition and political division.

I wouldn't say globalism means uniformal activity and communication without competition as you would suggest, quite the contrary. Competition is far more bigger today but with much less violence.

Globalism means more and more kinds of competition are removed as regulation is removed. For example, look at the coordination between the major central banks across the world. Also, monopolies prevail.

Yes on that scale, but as regulations are removed, competition on a more micro level is booming.

Although we see today somewhat institutional monopolies I wouldn't like to predict how long those will last and how long they will be stable especially since it's a complex system. We are, after all, only beginning globalisation (in the sense of collective global system coordination) and will probably (re)discover new mechanisms along the way.

> but as regulations are removed, competition on a more micro level is booming.

If the internet is an example, that doesn't happen.

So, should we give up on relative peace for the sake of scientific and technological innovation?

Not an attack, but an actual question.

About utopian world, this may interest you: http://io9.gizmodo.com/how-rats-turned-their-private-paradis...

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