Peak Globalization
In my book Garden Earth (2012) I write that there are signs that the pace of globalization is slowing and possibly will reverse.
The proportion of trade of the GDP is perhaps one of the most straight-forward indicators to look at.
The WTO reports, that global trade has grown 1.5 times faster than gross domestic product over the long term, and twice as fast when globalization picked up in the 1990s. This year trade will grow only 80 percent as fast as the global economy, the first reversal of globalization since 2001 and only the second since 1982. The WTO sees this as a problem.
Even if I were a strong supporter in globalization (which I am not) I would find it hard to argue for why trade should take an ever increasing share of the GDP. Where is the limit? Why is it better that trade is half the GDP than 25%?
Other indicators of that we might have reached Peak Globalization are:
Fear of global terrorism.
Fear of global epidemics (SARS, Zika, Ebola).
Brexit.
Popular protests against the TTIP and CETA in Europe.
Climate change and awareness that flying is a major culprit for climate change.
Financial crisis and how it spread throughout the world.
Fear for security and food supplies.
Stagnant wages in most early developed countries.
Rise of nationalist parties.
Migration crisis (rather the political crisis around migration).
Local food movement.
As with globalization itself the reversal of globalization comes with both good and bad things, you have to take the bitter with the sweet.
In Garden Earth I wrote:
I am not against globalization. I believe that free movement of goods—and of people—are human rights. I believe that, in total, globalization has more benefits than drawbacks, but then I speak about globalization as more than a narrow economic thing. I think of the globalization of human rights, of the Internet, of the fact that dictators all over the world can’t get away so easily any more. I think of globalization as a force undermining the authority of the nation-state and nationalism. So while there are, in general, drawbacks and benefits of globalization, depending on how the rules are bent globalization can be good for one and bad for another. Globalization at present has been driven or, rather, hijacked as a capitalist project, opening up all aspects of human life to exploitation. As such, it deserves the protests.
I am less positive today in the sense that the benefits of globalization seems smaller and the drawbacks bigger.