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Comment by snapplebobapple | Hacker News Reader

If globalization is inevitable why has the previous state of the world never globalized? Why have the parts that formed trading blocks previously eventually failed and collapsed rather than making a global world? If globalization was truly inevitable I would have expected to see it in the history by now.

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Nations have clearly been trending larger over history, on average. Unless there's a good reason for this trend to stop after thousands of years, globalization will be the end result. But the process will happen organically, and slowly -- perhaps slower than some would like.

I wouldn't say that is clear at all. Perhaps there is a trend of growing larger before collapsing spectacularly into a bunch of smaller nations, but that is about as far as I would ever be comfortable saying anything is clear on this topic.

Perhaps you're thinking about empires that were primarily held together by military force. Those are inherently unstable. As it pertains to globalization, the more relevant trend over time is the formation of nation states that primarily exist for any other reason.

Your hypothesis is the nationalism that is a recent invention of the last 400 or so years that drives nation states (that we have been trying really hard to destroy in the first world) will cause globalization rather than more of the friction and war it has caused in the past? Nation states only drive unity when there is an other to compete with and by design they can't cause the end game of globalization. At best that process is going to hold an area together through a spectacular collapse, not drive one world unity.

This is a very short-sighted view. Globalization requires certain level of operational efficiencies, such as speed and cost of communication and transportation. We have just recently reached a level where governments and corporations can support demands from billions of population. Technology will keep on progressing unless we end up in an extinction scenario, and at certain level globalization will be just another step in humanity's perpetual drive towards centralization.

> Technology will keep on progressing unless we end up in an extinction scenario

Surely it’s “until” not “unless”. We’re going extinct at some point, even if we make it all the way to the heat death of the universe.

Who knows? Maybe we will find a bug in current universe implementation and we will be able to breakout from the simulation in different form.

It's actually a very long term view, looking at the last 9000 years or so of history we are aware of. You also have requirements confused with incentives. That the things you mention are required does not in any way mean globalization will happen if they are present. There needs to be a strong incentive that is more valuable than the status quo to all the parties involved and there are all sorts of assumptions about that incentive that are unclear if they are true or pretty clear they are false (eg: assuming economies of scale will continue with size at a meaningful enough value rather than plateauing, changing slope to be much flatter or outright decreasing. Assuming technology will always improve. Assuming population changes from, for example, an ultra low birth rate won't precipitate one of the many breaking up of large countries we have seen in history, etc.)

> why has the previous state of the world never globalized?

it absolutely has. as you indicated in your follow up question.

for their time periods, many times throughout history we’ve had their version of globalization.

globalization is the natural state of society. obstacles are put in the way for various reasons; power, fear, etc… but it’s artificial roadblocks that temporarily stop it.

we trade with other humans. it’s pretty normal. it’s far more abnormal for someone to say, “you’re not allowed to trade stuff with Jim because he lives on the wrong side of that tree over there.”

Let’s say you have a trade caravan. Why should you be allowed to make money on my territory that belongs to my ancestors/I conquered fair and square? Secondly, I have a hard time understanding abstract notions of property rights. I do understand the natural law that fleshy meat is weak against pointy spears.

Globalisation as we know it requires massive amount of military effort, diplomacy, and international law to be kept alive. In the past trade was taxed to death and was limited to luxury goods only. You could only trade in small volumes to limit the risk of theft. So all essential goods had to be made in your own territory.

I also think that this is the big difference between (classical) trade and (modern) globalisation. Trade has existed since ancient times, but globalisation, where a large fraction of a nation’s essential goods are from foreign countries, is very recent and artificial.

Well, I am sorry the world timeline is not adjusted to yours. What makes this moment particular to say 1,000 years ago? Nothing.

11 aircraft carriers.

globalization requires cheap and efficient transportation and communication, which we have not had until recently. As soon as we did globalization began.

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