Robert Skiderski
Is the world economy global or globalization?In 1990, the answer was obvious.Communism has just collapsed in Central Europe and Eastern Europe.In China, Deng Xiaoping is liberating capitalist companies.Politicians Fukuyama announced the famous "end of history", and he meant that the free and democracy and the free market won.
In the past few years, Lionel Robbins, a British economist who believed in the free market, warned that the political foundation of the post -war international order was crumbling and could not support the global economy.However, in the early 1990s, people warned this warning.After all, this is a "single -pole moment", and the US hegemony is almost the same as the world government.This view believes that with the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the last political obstacle of international economic integration has been eliminated.
Economists and political scientists have been abstracted to blind their eyes, and they should have paid more attention to history.They should have known that globalization always has ups and downs.The first wave of globalization occurred between 1880 and 1914 and achieved a significant reduction in transportation and communication costs.By 1913, the commodity market was more integrated than ever before, and the golden position maintained a fixed exchange rate. Under the protection of the empire, the capital was able to achieve a free flow of low risk.
Unfortunately, this golden age of liberalism and economic integration ends by the two Great Depression in the middle.Trade has shrunk to the level of 1800, capital flows are exhausted. Governments of various countries impose tariffs to protect industry and employment, and implement capital control. The largest economy is divided into regional groups.In order to establish its own regional groups in Germany, Japan, and Italy, the war started.
The second wave of globalization began in the 1980s. With the end of the Cold War and the rise of digital communication, it is now rapidly backward.The ratio of global trade accounted for GDP (GDP), from 61%before the financial crisis in 2008 to 52%in 2020. In recent years, capital flows have become increasingly limited.As the United States and China take the lead in forming their own geopolitical groups, the world economy has gradually shifted from interconnection to fragmented, and globalization is in the ascendant.
To understand why globalization collapses for the second time, it is necessary to relive economist Keynes' unforgettable description of London on the eve of World War I.In 1919, he wrote: "The conflict between militarism and imperialism, race and culture and confrontation, monopoly, trade barriers, and extremism.For consumers, all this is almost no different from the daily entertainment news published in newspapers, which seems to have no impact on our daily society and economic life. In fact, the internationalization process in these aspects is close to completion."
In our time, geopolitics may once again destroy international order.As French thinker Montesquien observed, business has a soothing effect.However, free trade needs to alleviate the strong political foundation of geopolitical tension.Otherwise, as Robbins warned, globalization will become a zero -sum game.Looking back, failed to make the United Nations Security Council truly represent the world population, it may be the original sin that is currently opposed to the opening of the economy.
However, geopolitics is not the only reason for the second wave of global collapse.New liberal economics, which began to lead policy formulation in the 1980s, exacerbated global instability in three main aspects.
First of all, neo -liberals have not considered uncertainty.The valid market hypothesis is that the average pricing of the financial market for risks is correct, providing theoretical basis for relaxation control, and making decision makers ignore the danger of financial liberalization.Before the crisis broke out in 2008, experts and multilateral institutions, including the International Monetary Fund, still claimed that the banking system was safe and the market could self -regulate.Although it is ridiculous in retrospect, a similar point of view still causes banks to underestimate economic risks today.
Secondly, neo -liberal economists have a blind eye to global imbalances.The pursuit of market -led economic integration has accelerated the transfer of manufacturing production from developed economies to developing economies.But on the contrary, this has also led to capital flowing from the poor country to the rich.In short, Chinese workers have supported Western living standards, while Chinese production has reduced western manufacturing positions.Due to public pressure from various countries and restrictions on the trade of low -cost producers, this imbalance exacerbated protectionism and led to the split of the world economy into a competitive economic group.
Finally, neo -liberal economics is indifferent to inequality.After 40 years of super globalization, tax reduction and fiscal tightening, the world's richest 10%of the world's richest population has 76%of total wealth, while the poorest half of the population has only 2%.As more and more wealth finally falls into the hands of scientific and technological speculators and frauds, the so -called "effective benefit" sports sacrifice Laver's curve logic, believes that making the rich becomes richer and encourage them to donate to charity institutionsEssence
The second wave of globalization will evolve into world wars like the first wave?Of course, it is possible, especially considering the lack of wisdom in the current world leaders.In order to prevent the global confusion again, we need to put forward bold ideas on the Breton Forest System and the economic and political heritage of the United Nations Charter in 1945.Otherwise, it may be a path that directly or indirectly to the end of the world.
Author Robert Skidelsky is a member of the British House of House
Professor of Honorary Honor of Winwei's University of Political Economics
English Original: Globalization's Latest Last Stand
All rights reserved: Project syndicate, 2023.
