8 ms·

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

51 points by lemming 9y ago

exelius 9y ago
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's coming in the next few decades. It's forced us to recognize the problems over the last several decades: the structure of human civilization is changing quickly, and people don't adapt that fast. Regardless of the societal cost, companies individually have to retain competitive advantage / 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. So it doesn'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's through offshoring or automation. The impact of automation will be far worse for the individual in society than the impact of globalization. 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're in for a messy few decades as we figure out how to restructure our societal institutions to work in the new world.
- iamcurious 9y ago
  Maybe we need to mass produce Stallmans and Torvaldses.
  - maneesh 9y ago
    I read that as 'Stalins' and I wasn't sure how to think
  - simonsarris 9y ago
    With all we now know about the heritability of intelligence and dysgenics, we're kind of going backwards on that front. (If you're not up to speed, Gwern's been maintaining a good bibliography: https://www.gwern.net/Mistakes#dysgenics https://www.gwern.net/Mistakes#dysgenics)
- mercurysmessage 9y ago
  Yea I really don't get it. They can whine all they want about manufacturing jobs, but good luck competing with a machine for that job.
  - exelius 9y ago
    Right, and there's no universal set of laws -- so if one country bans, taxes or otherwise heavily regulates automation, a country with more favorable economics for it (say, high nationalism, stagflation and a declining birth rate -- aka Japan now or the US in 30 years) would have an independent incentive to deregulate automation to remain globally competitive.
    - crdoconnor 9y ago
      I think the ultra wealthy want us to get ideas about regulating automation. It A) takes the heat off all the tax cuts, austerity, tax evasion and trade deals that actually keep them rich and B) Politically it would likely end up going nowhere anyway. I don't for a second think Bill Gates was serious when he proposed it.
  - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
    "Whine"? You realize these people are losing their livelihoods?
    - mercurysmessage 9y ago
      Yes, jobs have changed throughout history. People have to learn new skills or get trained in new fields. There is no other way. Hopefully this time it can mean better work for more people again but that is yet to be seen.
      - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
        Of course they've changed throughout history, but not always at the breakneck pace we're seeing today. And tbh people don't want to be retrained, people want stable jobs. We're looking at a future where some may need to be "reskilled" more than once and that's not politically feasible. >There is no other way. Yes, there is, a curtailing of globalization. In fact, I would say that our current way is just about the only way we can't continue. The article is about this exact feeling of inevitability. Globalization is not inevitable. A return to a time of nationalism and tarriffs is certainly possible. And unless those of us who are made relatively better-off by trade figure out a way to make the worse-off benefit too, there will be a political backlash which threatens the whole picture (see Brexit, Trump & the growth in socialist movements).
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- wefarrell 9y ago
  Improving the education system seems like a pretty obvious solution. It's a controversial subject and there are many strong opinions about which approach is right. I'm not sure what exactly the right course is but I do know that it involves more resources, smarter teachers, and higher teacher to student ratios.
  - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
    Education might help but it won't solve the problem. As a thought experiment, what if the government let everyone pursue phds for free, would we still have poor people? Of course! The way to fix this problem is through direct redistribution. Trade and globalization are not pareto efficient, they are kaldor-hicks efficient. And while we have been sending jobs overseas to the benefit of the upper class, we've also been lowering their tax rates, essentially benefitting the rich at the expense of the poor on both sides of the equation. High, progressive tax rates and strong social safety nets can get us out of this mess, everything else is a diversion.
  - svachalek 9y ago
    In the very short term, maybe it helps prevent the mass unemployment of new grads, but it doesn't change the structural situation -- over the course of this century, possibly in the first half of this century, machines are likely to surpass even the best-educated humans.
  - anotherbrownguy 9y ago
    What would you educate people to do? For example, getting a degree in Library Science with hopes of becoming a librarian would definitely not help them get a job because people are moving to digital delivery for books and this will only increase. So, I hope you have courses in mind which would make them valuable even after all menial jobs that we can think of now are automated away.
- anotherbrownguy 9y ago
  >The impact of automation will be far worse for the individual in society than the impact of globalization. I have found this sentiment very common but I haven't heard a good enough argument to support it. If we banned all sorts of artificial energy sources like fossil fuels, solar, nuclear etc. no automation would be possible and even the ones we have would be gone. This would mean that everyone would have unlimited "jobs" (because everything currently done by machines would have to be done by hand if possible) while the standards of living would for everyone would drop significantly. So, lets say we started from that position and gradually started allowing limited amount of fuel and automation that amount of fuel would be able to do. While this would mean that some people would have to lose jobs and switch to something else, the standard of living overall would be increased. At what point would you say that there is "too much automation"?
  - coldtea 9y ago
    >At what point would you say that there is "too much automation"? When billions of people are not needed and a minority can maintain a rich/upper middle class standard of living by itself + automation, and thus, if it weren't for causing chaos and riots, those redundant masses can be left to rot and die in slums without jobs and houses.
    - s_m_t 9y ago
      I don't see how that scenario makes any sense. If the rich and upper middle class could maintain such lifestyles by themselves + automation then why wouldn't others have access to it?? Will the robots refuse to work for the poor?
      - anotherbrownguy 9y ago
        THIS. If richer people can automate their lifestyles, the companies selling automation technologies would definitely sell these automation technologies cheaply to the masses (specially given that because of automation, mass producing automation technologies would also be cheap) and everyone would be able to automate everything that can be automated. I think this would eventually lead to less inequality, not more.
- ChemicalWarfare 9y ago
  >> it doesn't matter if globalization is good or bad. It is our reality because individual companies will always be looking to gain an advantage... these companies don't operate in a vacuum though and have to abide by rules and regulation that either impact them directly (like tariffs on their products when importing them into the country) or "indirectly" by tax breaks or other benefits provided to their competitors who favor domestic labor etc.
Animats 9y ago
This is worth reading. If globalization is being questioned even at Davos, it's a major change. 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'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] [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/a-nationalist-china-unsettles-foreign-companies/2015/09/07/30bbf9a4-ed01-4b15-a510-4e513e96a15c_story.html?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.145f1c834fdd https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/a-national... [2] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/03/red-flag-windows-microsoft-modifies-windows-os-for-chinese-government/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/03/red-f...
- creaghpatr 9y ago
  It's interesting to speculate whether companies like Alibaba, WeChat, etc. would form in other countries that didn't allow Amazon/Google. On the other side of the coin, Amazon and Google have probably enabled the development of other businesses in those countries. I hesitate to use the US as an example though since Amazon and Google are from the US.
  - Animats 9y ago
    Alibaba started as a business-to-business service. China needed that - it enabled dealing with remote companies, which wasn't a big part of business culture. The reputation and verification service made that feasible. Alibaba has "Onsite check", where someone from Alibaba goes to the site and looks at the factory, and checks records to see who really owns the factory. Like Dun and Bradstreet, but integrated with ads and shopping. WeChat is a comprehensive mobile-first service. China needed that because it's a mobile-first country.
  - digi_owl 9y ago
    Hard to say, but i recall seeing multiple local social networks that flamed out massively once Facebook started accepting international users.
autokad 9y ago
I want to say it before people forget it, Did you ever notice how automation was a fringe topic before Trump won the presidency? The very DAY someone was elected outside of the global globalization koolaid drinking group: look over there, automation is the problem!
- mercurysmessage 9y ago
  No I certainly never noticed it. Have you noticed Amazons factory robots?
  - autokad 9y ago
    https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=automation https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=automation its not a hockey stick for sure, but its clearly elevated. you can even see it in the other comments, the argument follows as: "if we didn't outsource / globalize, we would have lost the jobs anyways to automation." or "why bother fighting globalization, automation is going to take the jobs anyways"
- exelius 9y ago
  People were worrying about automation well before Trump. In the recent backlash against globalization, Trump is only one data point: nationalism is on the rise in Europe as well with Brexit (which happened before Trump's election) being the prime example, but far from the only one.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  I don't think so. From my experience, automation (and parallel to it, UBI) as a discussion topic was steadily growing for last 3 - 4 years. Even "Humans Need Not Apply", which wasn't the first well-known piece on that topic, is from 2014. OTOH I did notice this weird tendency of blaming Trump for everything. I'm waiting for someone to connect the growth of JavaScript and web bloat with the current US President.
  - exelius 9y ago
    IMO Trump was the canary in the coal mine that the world had changed, just like 9/11 was in its time: both are highly visible, symbolic milestones that are loosely associated with the broader cultural changes that had been happening for a while, but are associated with that event nonetheless.
eksemplar 9y ago
Globalization isn't falling, it's been a constant throughout human history and will likely remain so until we kill ourselves by climate. Who globalization benefits, however, changes from time to time and right now the west is being dethroned. Ironically things like nationalism only makes even more room available for other players who are more than willing to fill your void.
- exelius 9y ago
  Actually the west disproportionately benefits from globalization, but only the capital class. Anyone who doesn't own stock in a global company gets left behind -- and something like 75% of Americans own no stocks at all.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
diego_moita 9y ago
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. What drives globalization isn't the WTO, the Davos elites or evil capitalists. It is technology: steam ships, refrigeration, containers in ports, telecommunications, etc. Other technologies will come and will accelerate this process. We will surely go beyond "global supply chains", regardless of what orange demagogues think of it.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  I agree. Globalization is what happens when, thanks to technological progress, you can no longer ignore entities on the other end of the planet. Technology is an enabler - once you make a new thing possible, people will do it. You can try and oppose this process, but it's expensive and probably always doomed to failure anyway. China is a case in point - all that government effort and they still ended up pretty westernized today. To stop globalization, one would have to revert the entire planet to before industrial revolution. Which is entirely possible with e.g. nuclear weapons, but I don't think anyone sane would want that to happen.
- ChemicalWarfare 9y ago
  Globalization has many aspects. The job outsourcing aspect of it can absolutely be controlled to the point of stopping it for all intents and purposes.
projectramo 9y ago
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). I don't think the "theory" of globalization has an impact on that. There is an economic theory -- acknowledged in the article -- that people, given education, will find the jobs that are created. Is there any reason to believe this economic theory does not hold? 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?
bwb 9y ago
Globalization is a baby in the grand scope of things, we are in period 1 of 1000. I've got friends around the world, I do business with people around the world. That is not going to change.

51 points by lemming 9y ago

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's coming in the next few decades. It's forced us to recognize the problems over the last several decades: the structure of human civilization is changing quickly, and people don't adapt that fast. Regardless of the societal cost, companies individually have to retain competitive advantage / 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. So it doesn'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's through offshoring or automation. The impact of automation will be far worse for the individual in society than the impact of globalization. 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're in for a messy few decades as we figure out how to restructure our societal institutions to work in the new world.

iamcurious 9y ago
Maybe we need to mass produce Stallmans and Torvaldses.
- maneesh 9y ago
  I read that as 'Stalins' and I wasn't sure how to think
- simonsarris 9y ago
  With all we now know about the heritability of intelligence and dysgenics, we're kind of going backwards on that front. (If you're not up to speed, Gwern's been maintaining a good bibliography: https://www.gwern.net/Mistakes#dysgenics https://www.gwern.net/Mistakes#dysgenics)
mercurysmessage 9y ago
Yea I really don't get it. They can whine all they want about manufacturing jobs, but good luck competing with a machine for that job.
- exelius 9y ago
  Right, and there's no universal set of laws -- so if one country bans, taxes or otherwise heavily regulates automation, a country with more favorable economics for it (say, high nationalism, stagflation and a declining birth rate -- aka Japan now or the US in 30 years) would have an independent incentive to deregulate automation to remain globally competitive.
  - crdoconnor 9y ago
    I think the ultra wealthy want us to get ideas about regulating automation. It A) takes the heat off all the tax cuts, austerity, tax evasion and trade deals that actually keep them rich and B) Politically it would likely end up going nowhere anyway. I don't for a second think Bill Gates was serious when he proposed it.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  "Whine"? You realize these people are losing their livelihoods?
  - mercurysmessage 9y ago
    Yes, jobs have changed throughout history. People have to learn new skills or get trained in new fields. There is no other way. Hopefully this time it can mean better work for more people again but that is yet to be seen.
    - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
      Of course they've changed throughout history, but not always at the breakneck pace we're seeing today. And tbh people don't want to be retrained, people want stable jobs. We're looking at a future where some may need to be "reskilled" more than once and that's not politically feasible. >There is no other way. Yes, there is, a curtailing of globalization. In fact, I would say that our current way is just about the only way we can't continue. The article is about this exact feeling of inevitability. Globalization is not inevitable. A return to a time of nationalism and tarriffs is certainly possible. And unless those of us who are made relatively better-off by trade figure out a way to make the worse-off benefit too, there will be a political backlash which threatens the whole picture (see Brexit, Trump & the growth in socialist movements).
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
wefarrell 9y ago
Improving the education system seems like a pretty obvious solution. It's a controversial subject and there are many strong opinions about which approach is right. I'm not sure what exactly the right course is but I do know that it involves more resources, smarter teachers, and higher teacher to student ratios.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  Education might help but it won't solve the problem. As a thought experiment, what if the government let everyone pursue phds for free, would we still have poor people? Of course! The way to fix this problem is through direct redistribution. Trade and globalization are not pareto efficient, they are kaldor-hicks efficient. And while we have been sending jobs overseas to the benefit of the upper class, we've also been lowering their tax rates, essentially benefitting the rich at the expense of the poor on both sides of the equation. High, progressive tax rates and strong social safety nets can get us out of this mess, everything else is a diversion.
- svachalek 9y ago
  In the very short term, maybe it helps prevent the mass unemployment of new grads, but it doesn't change the structural situation -- over the course of this century, possibly in the first half of this century, machines are likely to surpass even the best-educated humans.
- anotherbrownguy 9y ago
  What would you educate people to do? For example, getting a degree in Library Science with hopes of becoming a librarian would definitely not help them get a job because people are moving to digital delivery for books and this will only increase. So, I hope you have courses in mind which would make them valuable even after all menial jobs that we can think of now are automated away.
anotherbrownguy 9y ago
>The impact of automation will be far worse for the individual in society than the impact of globalization. I have found this sentiment very common but I haven't heard a good enough argument to support it. If we banned all sorts of artificial energy sources like fossil fuels, solar, nuclear etc. no automation would be possible and even the ones we have would be gone. This would mean that everyone would have unlimited "jobs" (because everything currently done by machines would have to be done by hand if possible) while the standards of living would for everyone would drop significantly. So, lets say we started from that position and gradually started allowing limited amount of fuel and automation that amount of fuel would be able to do. While this would mean that some people would have to lose jobs and switch to something else, the standard of living overall would be increased. At what point would you say that there is "too much automation"?
- coldtea 9y ago
  >At what point would you say that there is "too much automation"? When billions of people are not needed and a minority can maintain a rich/upper middle class standard of living by itself + automation, and thus, if it weren't for causing chaos and riots, those redundant masses can be left to rot and die in slums without jobs and houses.
  - s_m_t 9y ago
    I don't see how that scenario makes any sense. If the rich and upper middle class could maintain such lifestyles by themselves + automation then why wouldn't others have access to it?? Will the robots refuse to work for the poor?
    - anotherbrownguy 9y ago
      THIS. If richer people can automate their lifestyles, the companies selling automation technologies would definitely sell these automation technologies cheaply to the masses (specially given that because of automation, mass producing automation technologies would also be cheap) and everyone would be able to automate everything that can be automated. I think this would eventually lead to less inequality, not more.
ChemicalWarfare 9y ago
>> it doesn't matter if globalization is good or bad. It is our reality because individual companies will always be looking to gain an advantage... these companies don't operate in a vacuum though and have to abide by rules and regulation that either impact them directly (like tariffs on their products when importing them into the country) or "indirectly" by tax breaks or other benefits provided to their competitors who favor domestic labor etc.

Animats 9y ago

This is worth reading. If globalization is being questioned even at Davos, it's a major change. 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'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] [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/a-nationalist-china-unsettles-foreign-companies/2015/09/07/30bbf9a4-ed01-4b15-a510-4e513e96a15c_story.html?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.145f1c834fdd https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/a-national... [2] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/03/red-flag-windows-microsoft-modifies-windows-os-for-chinese-government/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/03/red-f...

creaghpatr 9y ago
It's interesting to speculate whether companies like Alibaba, WeChat, etc. would form in other countries that didn't allow Amazon/Google. On the other side of the coin, Amazon and Google have probably enabled the development of other businesses in those countries. I hesitate to use the US as an example though since Amazon and Google are from the US.
- Animats 9y ago
  Alibaba started as a business-to-business service. China needed that - it enabled dealing with remote companies, which wasn't a big part of business culture. The reputation and verification service made that feasible. Alibaba has "Onsite check", where someone from Alibaba goes to the site and looks at the factory, and checks records to see who really owns the factory. Like Dun and Bradstreet, but integrated with ads and shopping. WeChat is a comprehensive mobile-first service. China needed that because it's a mobile-first country.
- digi_owl 9y ago
  Hard to say, but i recall seeing multiple local social networks that flamed out massively once Facebook started accepting international users.

autokad 9y ago

I want to say it before people forget it, Did you ever notice how automation was a fringe topic before Trump won the presidency? The very DAY someone was elected outside of the global globalization koolaid drinking group: look over there, automation is the problem!

mercurysmessage 9y ago
No I certainly never noticed it. Have you noticed Amazons factory robots?
- autokad 9y ago
  https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=automation https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=automation its not a hockey stick for sure, but its clearly elevated. you can even see it in the other comments, the argument follows as: "if we didn't outsource / globalize, we would have lost the jobs anyways to automation." or "why bother fighting globalization, automation is going to take the jobs anyways"
exelius 9y ago
People were worrying about automation well before Trump. In the recent backlash against globalization, Trump is only one data point: nationalism is on the rise in Europe as well with Brexit (which happened before Trump's election) being the prime example, but far from the only one.
TeMPOraL 9y ago
I don't think so. From my experience, automation (and parallel to it, UBI) as a discussion topic was steadily growing for last 3 - 4 years. Even "Humans Need Not Apply", which wasn't the first well-known piece on that topic, is from 2014. OTOH I did notice this weird tendency of blaming Trump for everything. I'm waiting for someone to connect the growth of JavaScript and web bloat with the current US President.
- exelius 9y ago
  IMO Trump was the canary in the coal mine that the world had changed, just like 9/11 was in its time: both are highly visible, symbolic milestones that are loosely associated with the broader cultural changes that had been happening for a while, but are associated with that event nonetheless.

eksemplar 9y ago

Globalization isn't falling, it's been a constant throughout human history and will likely remain so until we kill ourselves by climate. Who globalization benefits, however, changes from time to time and right now the west is being dethroned. Ironically things like nationalism only makes even more room available for other players who are more than willing to fill your void.

exelius 9y ago
Actually the west disproportionately benefits from globalization, but only the capital class. Anyone who doesn't own stock in a global company gets left behind -- and something like 75% of Americans own no stocks at all.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

diego_moita 9y ago

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. What drives globalization isn't the WTO, the Davos elites or evil capitalists. It is technology: steam ships, refrigeration, containers in ports, telecommunications, etc. Other technologies will come and will accelerate this process. We will surely go beyond "global supply chains", regardless of what orange demagogues think of it.

TeMPOraL 9y ago
I agree. Globalization is what happens when, thanks to technological progress, you can no longer ignore entities on the other end of the planet. Technology is an enabler - once you make a new thing possible, people will do it. You can try and oppose this process, but it's expensive and probably always doomed to failure anyway. China is a case in point - all that government effort and they still ended up pretty westernized today. To stop globalization, one would have to revert the entire planet to before industrial revolution. Which is entirely possible with e.g. nuclear weapons, but I don't think anyone sane would want that to happen.
ChemicalWarfare 9y ago
Globalization has many aspects. The job outsourcing aspect of it can absolutely be controlled to the point of stopping it for all intents and purposes.

projectramo 9y ago

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). I don't think the "theory" of globalization has an impact on that. There is an economic theory -- acknowledged in the article -- that people, given education, will find the jobs that are created. Is there any reason to believe this economic theory does not hold? 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?

bwb 9y ago

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