Deglobalization?

Globalization is dead. Long live Deglobalization?

For years, futurists have been tracking globalization. When it first was noticed, it was almost entirely seen as driven by developments in communication and transportation technologies that required globally-uniform rules. These technologies then spread culture--primarily western popular culture--worldwide.

It was only much later that political-economic neoconservatives appropriated the term to refer almost entirely to global economic processes that were increasingly--and purposely--beyond the control of the nation-state. Indeed, the state (and the international system) was to wither, as corporations in free trade took over global governance.

When the University of Hawaii created a Globalization Center, I complained that it was too late; that globalization in economic terms was a passing fad, and globalization in technological terms was also uncertain.

Well, the current edition of the British journal The Economist has an article that essentially argues that we are now into a prolonged period of "deglobalization". The amazing thing is that most commentators on the article seem to agree! And the things some of them say about economists shouldn't be read by impressionable young children.

Check it out: http://www.economist.com/world/international/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13145370&fsrc=nwlgafree