route to ‘globalization’

The post-war globalization was led by the United States who celebrated the ideas of commercialism and democracy. Globalization was hardly a new phenomenon, but instead a process stalled by the decades of warfare. In the 19th century, globalization was pushed heavily onward by the United Kingdom and increasingly by other European powers.

To understand globalization in the contemporary world, it is worth looking at the previous highs and lows of the phenomenon. For example, the new technologies of the 19th century allowed people, goods, and ideas to move across Europe faster than ever before. The shift encouraged nations to dream beyond the everyday misery. Yet, these ideologies ended up being too large to be contained inside small nation-states. As a result, Europe ended up in almost 40-year long cycle of warfare.

Fortunately, the experience and innovation was transferred to the US where war refugees continued to aspire for their dreams. Unlike the rulers of the socialist countries in the Eastern Europe, the US government generally welcomed the entrepreneurship of the new citizens. The government was favorable to creative aspirations as long as these supported a mixture of democracy, individualism and Christian spiritualism. In a hindsight, the strange bottle of ideas created a truly revolutionary platform – a sort of a cradle – for innovations and explorations. The Old Continent followed the New Continent in awe as the middle-classes kept growing and lifted nations out of poverty one after another.

Then again, the same magical bottle of ideas relied heavily on short-term success stories. When an ideology ran out of fuel, the US government was happy to kill the old darlings and try the next success recipe. For the modern US, such turns have occurred every few decades as the country has experienced too much inner turmoil. The US of the Roaring 1920s is in a striking contrast to the post-war interventionist state. Likewise, the country moved in a new position in the 1970s and ’80s as neoliberal evangelists gained hold of the government affairs. It remains to be seen whether the current Trump era will be seen as a similar transition away from the past.

Since the most of the world followed the US successfully to the rabbit hole during the Cold War period, Americans managed to create a sort of a development imperative. A ‘ladder of growth’ formed a doctrine for any nation aspiring to break free of tyranny and anarchy. However, after the collapse of Soviet Union, the American ladder began to be taken seriously all over the world whereas the socialist ideals were despised. Governments refusing to follow the ladder were heavily sanctioned, whereas those opening up were rewarded with global flows of investments. The shared dance steps forward to the unknown was soon called as globalization.

Technological disruption

If globalization is purely seen as the increasingly shared physical objects and representational objects across the cultures, one has to move much further to the past. Ancient civilizations distributed vast amounts of standardized tools, such as wheels, money and weaponry, as well as standardized mediums, such as crafts, drawings and writings, whose usage was necessary for organizing and expanding mass-religions. Even when globalization is understood strictly as purposeful alignment of nations towards common destination, one should recognize the European dominance around the world during the 17th and 18th centuries. European empires forced old civilizations to fall down one after another through immense capacity for warfare and terror which allowed formation of global trading routes. Furthermore, the process was recognized by philosophers who generated convincing arguments for equal rights to all human beings across the Earth. Such thoughts created the key principles for both American constitution as well as for the French Revolution.

Industrialization led to the transition away from the previous slowly phased globalization. The inferior technology and the superior access to raw resources caused a sudden rise in experimentation and innovation in northern Britain. Although the initial phase of industrialization caused little benefits for the greater public, the new innovations encouraged others to step in and continue further. After few decades, the wealthy industry-owners were ready to seek cheap labor and land from the continental Europe and the US who eventually turned to become fierce competitors for the UK. Eventually the process even led to the rising welfare and awareness among the collective public which we today take for granted.

Contemporary rise in inequalities between the owners of the industries and the rest might mean a return to a previously described period. Like the cotton industry, the microchip industry seems to require highly contained technology whose spread might take several decades of sustained competition. Yet, the wealthy industry-owners need to first break up the protections of labor and land which were once seen as fundamental building blocks of a modern nation-state. It is also the moment for populist uprisings to take advantage of the continued disruption. Such a moment could take a decade or a century – but it is always better to be prepared for the worst.