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> Before WW1, the economy was roughly as interdependent as it is now. This is untrue. In 1913, exports were roughly 14% of economic activity. Today, it's at 24
by Aunche 4y ago
> Before WW1, the economy was roughly as interdependent as it is now.
This is untrue. In 1913, exports were roughly 14% of economic activity. Today, it's at 24% [1]. This effect is exaggerated when you consider that people were a lot more self reliant back then, and most of this labor doesn't get recorded as economic activity (e.g. hand-washing clothes vs using a washer, subsidence farming vs buying food at a supermarket).
Today, there is also a lot more multinational corporations and international investments. For example, Foxconn is a Taiwanese company, but the vast majority of its over a million workers are Chinese. As far as I can tell, you never saw Austrian elites buy a ton of Serbian real-estate, which is what China's elites are doing. Had that been the case, you'd see a lot Austrian elites fight very hard to keep the peace to prevent their investments from going into flames.
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/trade-and-globalization#trade-has-changed-the-world-economy https://ourworldindata.org/trade-and-globalization#trade-has...
- runarberg 4y ago> In 1913, exports were roughly 14% of economic activity. Today, it's at 24% Is it as simple as just comparing these two proportions? [let alone the fact that comparing proportions is generally a bad idea when there is a difference in absolute quantity/quality between the two samples]. In 1913 a huge proportion of the world’s populations were colonized. The economic activity within these colonies is something that is really hard to compare to today’s situation of global capitalism. I think comparing these proportions is not what your parent had in mind when they stated this, and honestly I don’t think they give a good insight into how global trade was back then compared to today. Aside: Citing our world in data leaves a general distaste in my mouth. They seem to take Hans Rosling’s idea of needing a good visualization to an extreme. Throwing everything but the kitchen sink into these graphs. Missing the fact that a misleading graph can do more damage then a good graph can provide insight.