The author seems to conflate all opposition to the current flavour of globalisation with nationalism. Nationalism in this context basically means thinking that your country and their people are best and so things made there are better - and if someone's only reason for believing that is that they were born there, or that they were brainwashed to believe it, that is irrational.<p>There are examples of nationalism in the United States holding back some forms of globalisation. For example, in a truly global world every country would have open borders to anyone who wanted to immigrate there, and saying that someone can't come to your country because that would take jobs from 'more deserving' locals is a form of nationalism.<p>However, "local food, DIY, sustainability" are not examples of nationalism. Instead, they are an expression of growing discontent about inadequate price signals for externalities like climate change and peak oil, and that much global trade is focused around avoiding environmental and labour protection laws, and exploiting third world countries, rather than genuine comparative advantages and economies of scale.
An artist did a very interesting thing a few years ago: He made a pencil from scratch.<p>He cut the wood, mined the graphite, melted the lead, and created the eraser from a rubbertree. His pencil ended up costing thousands and thousands of dollars. Yet you can go to the nearest office outlet and buy ten pencils for a dollar. This is because of globalisation. Someone somewhere has specialised in making pencils and churn out millions of them a year, driving the cost down to almost nothing. The same is true of almost all other products.<p>This is the primary reason our standard of living increases, most economists agree on this.<p>Protectionism usually comes around when times are bad and countries need a scapegoat and a bad guy whose fault it is. For the US it used to be Mexico, now it's China. But the fact is that open trade helps both them and us (they get to sell goods, we get cheaper pencils), besides it works both ways. Denmark, for instance, specialises in hearing aids and container shipping both of which we have a more than 50% global share of. The world gets cheap hearing aids because Denmark massproduces them, and in return Denmark gets cheap pencils and other stuff that someone else somewhere produces.<p>Politicians. thoughtleaders and policy makers across the world are aware of this mechanic but often use protectionism as a political weapon, knowing that it's bad for their economy.<p>Nations are more economically intertwined and trade more than ever before, and it's not going to stop anytime soon. There might be a bump in the road, as there often is when times are bad, but it's not going to stop.<p>Globalisation is here to stay, and you should be happy for it. It means that you can get a Wii for the price of a digital watch ten years ago.
I get suspicious when articles talk in terms of "the Chinese" and "the Americans" and "the Germans." That is painting with such a broad brush. You know you are not the same as everyone else in your country, but it is so easy to fall back on the assumption that people in other countries must all be the same. It is really hard to write insightfully about the variety and complexity of real life, so instead we get articles like this.