Globalisation: the rise and fall of an idea that swept the world

Honestly, for all the hand-wringing over globalization, I think it has been a necessary stopgap for the wholesale destruction of low-skilled jobs by automation that&#x27;s coming in the next few decades. It&#x27;s forced us to recognize the problems over the last several decades: the structure of human civilization is changing quickly, and people don&#x27;t adapt that fast.<p>Regardless of the societal cost, companies individually have to retain competitive advantage &#x2F; parity. Automation will be a boon for individual companies, which means it will be an arms race among competitors in an industry. Tragedy of the commons and all.<p>So it doesn&#x27;t matter if globalization is good or bad. It is our reality because individual companies will always be looking to gain an advantage whether that&#x27;s through offshoring or automation. The impact of automation will be far worse for the individual in society than the impact of globalization.<p>All of this leads to even more wealth inequality as the value in the economy is increasingly captured by capital rather than labor. I think we&#x27;re in for a messy few decades as we figure out how to restructure our societal institutions to work in the new world.

This is worth reading. If globalization is being questioned even at Davos, it&#x27;s a major change.<p>Not mentioned in the article: China. China now has an official policy of autarky. It is a national objective to be as independent as possible of outside sources.[1] That&#x27;s already been achieved with the Internet, using the Great Firewall of China to help China-based services compete. Google, Facebook, Skype - all blocked in China. Microsoft Windows past XP is often a special version for China for which the Chinese government has the source code.[2]<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&#x2F;world&#x2F;asia_pacific&#x2F;a-nationalist-china-unsettles-foreign-companies&#x2F;2015&#x2F;09&#x2F;07&#x2F;30bbf9a4-ed01-4b15-a510-4e513e96a15c_story.html?tid=a_inl&amp;utm_term=.145f1c834fdd" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&#x2F;world&#x2F;asia_pacific&#x2F;a-national...</a> [2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;arstechnica.com&#x2F;information-technology&#x2F;2017&#x2F;03&#x2F;red-flag-windows-microsoft-modifies-windows-os-for-chinese-government&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;arstechnica.com&#x2F;information-technology&#x2F;2017&#x2F;03&#x2F;red-f...</a>

Globalization is just a new name for a very old process. It started long before Vasco da Gama started European Imperialism in 1497. It had some very bad moments before (e.g.: Great Depression) but it never stopped and will not stop.<p>What drives globalization isn&#x27;t the WTO, the Davos elites or evil capitalists. It is technology: steam ships, refrigeration, containers in ports, telecommunications, etc.<p>Other technologies will come and will accelerate this process. We will surely go beyond &quot;global supply chains&quot;, regardless of what orange demagogues think of it.

Globalization isn&#x27;t falling, it&#x27;s been a constant throughout human history and will likely remain so until we kill ourselves by climate.<p>Who globalization benefits, however, changes from time to time and right now the west is being dethroned.<p>Ironically things like nationalism only makes even more room available for other players who are more than willing to fill your void.

Globalization is a baby in the grand scope of things, we are in period 1 of 1000. I&#x27;ve got friends around the world, I do business with people around the world. That is not going to change.

I doubt there has been any time within the lifetime of anyone on hacker news where people have not worried about jobs being taken by robots. (And sometimes by other people).<p>I don&#x27;t think the &quot;theory&quot; of globalization has an impact on that.<p>There is an economic theory -- acknowledged in the article -- that people, given education, will find the jobs that are created.<p>Is there any reason to believe this economic theory does not hold?<p>This article seems to claim that politically, the idea has lost currency but the real question is: what is the reality? Can we educate people into jobs or not?