The World Will Regret Its Retreat from Economic Globalization

foreignpolicy.com

7 points·BerislavLopac··7 comments

Is that a prediction or a threat?

The world will surely do, as much as the world does anything. You may think the range is [0,0> or think it ends higher. Shrug.

But I wonder whether the set of those who will regret it includes anyone who might change it.

We aren't retreating from globalization, we are just separating out the good and the evil and deciding not to do business with evil.

what's the criteria for each side?

Democratic liberal political country on the "good" side.

Autocratic dictatorships are the baddies. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JOpPNra4bw

For example, China just went from a "sort of" almost democracy to full on autocratic dictorship the minute the law was passed that Xi Jinping is now life dictator. Same with Putin and Russia.

I don't feel like I have to defend anything I wrote above - it's pretty self-evident.

It's a lot less self-evident when you've been on the receiving end of the "good" side politics. Or perhaps more, but different.

A divorce is messy too, but sometimes necessary.

The retreat from globalization is mostly caused by growing distrust of Western countries towards China and trust isn't a commodity. You can't do much business without at least some trust. Historically, this sort of necessary trust was strongest within certain religious or ethnic groups (Jews, Puritans, Armenians, Quakers). The willingness of the world at large to extend trust towards totally foreign nations in the 1990-2020 period is a historical anomaly.

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