Smart wealthy countries understand these benefits and move their own economies to higher value creating activities like deep research, high tech development or financial services. Less smart wealthy countries try to erect trade barriers to force a return of uncompetitive manufacturing...
This was 100% what Europe believed and the Merkel administration in Germany more than anyone. Not to bring politics into HN intentionally, but I think the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and threats of invading Poland, Finland, and Germany from Russian spokesmen or MPs kind of throws cold water on this theory.
No matter how well meaning you are, you can't expect dictators and "strong men" to ever act in anything but bad faith. It is time the west realizes this and acts accordingly. As an American, I'm sad to see the "de-americaning" happening due to those here who elected a bad administration, but I can't say it is surprising. Ultimately, a less weak and less dependent on the US Europe is a net good for the world. Europe collectively being able to put a check on the US forces the US to not do stupid things, so this is good long term.
Dictators just don’t care however and Europe hasn’t had a ton of those since the 90s sans Putin.
I agree that we badly miscalculated Russia, but not every actor is Russia and willing to tank its own economy for revanchism.
You can try avoiding dealings with any autocracies, but that's really hard given our modern world and it's not like other democracies can never screw you over. I think it's more realistic to demand that we diversify our imports so that we can react to things like Russia's Ukraine invasion better.
NATO is the reason Russia attacked, not because "Germany was soft". Over-reliance on an external parter for a strategic economic input (cheap gas) was also a huge mis-step (all while shutting down self-reliant nuclear plants), but doesn't really dispute the "closer trade lowers likelihood of conflict" argument.
And no amount of denouncing US hypocrisy in defending democracy will make me change my mind. Two wrongs doesn't make a right and if it happens that Pax Americana allows a country to take a more democratic route, then let it happen.
Or as some Ukrainian said :
"We are not Russian doorstep, we are free, independent Ukraine. F** you"
The environmental costs of globalisation are (literally) horrific.
And a surprising amount of it is useless makework - disposable "fashion", faddy toys, and shoddy consumer goods that break after a couple of years.
As for lowering the risk of armed conflict - how's that working out for everyone?
As for " lowering the risk of armed conflict - how's that working out for everyone?" - pretty well, thank you. Deaths in armed conflicts have massively decreased since the 1980s with most of them originating from local wars in Africa prior to 2022. (see https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace) - the Ukraine conflict is a return of exactly the kind of imperialist expansion that we've seen in the leadup to World War 1 which happens when isolated countries with territorial ambitions seek to expand.
Regardless of the existence of Manufacturing.
Tax your rich fairly and you will see major shift.
Worked for multinational companies and the typical chatters are:
- US based employees get taxed less on RSU maturity but have to figure out how much they owe the Government afterwards.
- Meanwhile, EU and Canada based employees are all paying top rate tax and get refunded afterwards.
Interesting that US is the only outlier
Not income tax.
Do the top 1% income tax include those people whose wealth increase because of their assets? Something to ponder…
We shouldn’t tax productive workforce more (in fact, we should tax less). We should tax unproductive assets more and redistribute.
Nowadays manufacturing does not have to be uncompetitive. Advances in automation balance out wage disparities. They also provide more chances for a country to retain its skilled workers. Unions in developed nations can help the systematic power imbalance between capitalists and workers.
Well 1940’s being a wartime era would be a bad time to compare to. It’d be best to compare to compare to just before globalization, probably 1960’s, 70’s, or even early 80’s.
Smartphones and flatscreen TVs aren’t necessities. Sure it’s great they’re cheap but they’d be cheap anyway. Only a fairly small fraction of manufacturing costs are due to labor based on leaked iPhone costs I’ve seen that were like 10’s of dollars.
At the same time housing costs have increased massively in the last 2 decades. Worker wages in most fields have not kept apace productivity gains. It’s worse in affluent areas where “free” money has skyrocketed housing prices. Perhaps it’s not related to globalization but it seems partly due to it.
So, you alone declare that it has led to these things so everyone should isolate and drive up costs and share less? I get that we can't let the free market go unchecked, but free trade seems fundamental to competition and innovation.
I don't go to a touristy city for the shopping. Thanks to the Internet, I can already do that from anywhere, really. Sometimes I go to a touristy city for restaurants, but the presence of McDonald's doesn't take away from the dizzying array of typical food options in these places. Plus, globalization, to some degree, made it easy for a Dutch chef to come to my city to open a restaurant.
I admit that I was initially on the globalization bandwagon, but in hindsight it resulted in products being made in countries with the cheapest costs which led to a decrease in quality and the destruction of smaller, more local businesses.
Go to a tourist area anywhere in the world and you'll be confronted by the same businesses--Starbucks, McDonald's, Apple Store, H&M, Zara. It's the homogenization and boringification of the world.