If it's more efficient, as long as market forces outweigh "localist" forces, globalisation will continue down the gradient¹ to some minimum "energy state". The

If it's more efficient, as long as market forces outweigh "localist" forces, globalisation will continue down the gradient¹ to some minimum "energy state". The amount of money involved means that to tip that balance, you need a very strong, coherent and stable localist sentiment. The complexity of the system and the willingness of individuals to attempt to wiggle though to the minimum means you need a very strong, durable and controlling government to keep the unstable system together in a way that persists for a very long time: at least many decades and beyond. This is tricky to do when countries that don't enforce localism probably will appear to advance more and faster, and especially tricky when you think that the very people who want localism the most also probably chafe the most at the idea of a more centrally-controlled economy. It's certainly more than possible that in the long, long run, the localist countries are the tortoises and the globalist ones the hares, but it's a hard sell to the public during that period when neighbours have ample food and electricity and infrastructure and you don't because you're still working on DIYing the supply chains. 1: this is a changing gradient: you might find that where the minimum is changes over time. For example what was once Germany² became Japan, then Taiwan and now China. This will continue, probably via South and SE Asia to Africa. 2: "Made in Germany" was originally an involuntary mark of an inferior imported product into the UK. Relevant in this context, because circa the 1880s, Germany had strong protectionist policies and thus had governmentally-forced local, low-quality and cheap (to other countries) industrial capacity. A century later and it's a mark of pride, so the tortoise is, if not in the lead, not doing too badly! That Germany was wrecked in the interim by two World Wars on the trot makes it hard to extrapolate that success onto other countries going forwards from the present.