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Fact-Checking the Deglobalization Narrative

Jun 22, 2022 Andrés Velasco

If governments get it right, a more subdued, but also more sustainable and longer-lasting kind of globalization will emerge. And in an open and growing world economy, peddlers of deglobalization theories will find it easier to change jobs and re-skill.

LONDON – “The left and the right united shall never be defeated,” claimed the Chilean poet Nicanor Parra, and the current debate over deglobalization illustrates the point. So-called progressives never liked fast growth in world trade and now greet any reversal with cries of “I told you so!” Globalization-supporting conservatives, on the other hand, react to the smallest setback with Chicken Little-like cries that “the sky is falling!”

Both camps have an interest in exaggerating the extent of deglobalization. The result is a widely accepted narrative of decline: After repeated financial crises, a nativist reaction, the COVID-19 pandemic, and now Russia’s war on Ukraine, globalization’s days are numbered.

It’s an eye-catching claim. But is it true?

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Andrés Velasco

Writing for PS since 2001
127 Commentaries

Andrés Velasco, a former presidential candidate and finance minister of Chile, is Dean of the School of Public Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is the author of numerous books and papers on international economics and development, and has served on the faculty at Harvard, Columbia, and New York Universities.

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Elizabeth Pula Jun 27, 2022

With this type of extreme in Iran, 2021:
"Anti-compulsory hijab protesters are harshly singled out for punishment. Saba Kord Afshari, a 22 year-old women’s rights defender, posted videos and photographs of herself in public without a headscarf , as part of the White Wednesdays - My Stealthy Freedom campaign. She was sentenced to 24 years in prison for encouraging people to commit immorality, colluding against national security and spreading propaganda against the system.

Of course, Saba is not alone. Her mother, Raheleh Ahwas was also jailed for protesting against the sentence handed down to her daughter. Another mother-activist duo is Yasamin Aryani who is only 24 but is serving 16 years for removing her headscarf. Her mother Monireh Arabshahi is also jailed for protesting compulsory hijab laws."

https://www.hoover.org/research/without-human-rights-any-biden-deal-iran-will-be-ephemeral

And the new type of extreme in the US 2022, courtesy of the Supreme Court, any human rights any where are most definitely ephemeral, and there's a whole lot of people who still think they have basic human rights. Women don't, and it's getting worse.

Just how does a slogan:"The left and the right united shall never be defeated" change anything?

The new globalization, the new de-globalization is exactly the same as the old globalization, and the old de/non-globalization which is labor performed under varying conditions by the gullible, as slaves.
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Elizabeth Pula Jun 23, 2022

RE:"And in an open and growing world economy, peddlers of deglobalization theories will find it easier to change jobs and re-skill."

Here's a contra-example:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/nikolas-trevor-milton-faces-new-fraud-charge-related-purchase-utah-ranch-using-stock
Trevor apparently got into the game too late, and just didn't know how to maneuver the option plays with finesse to keep up with the real top players. Of course they've moved on, out and over already. The dominoes are scattering. What was. white is black. What is black was white. Zooming to the depths picking up deglobalized debt only creates real corrections real quick. The same guys keep passing the same bucks around because nothing really touches ground. It doesn't have to. The wanna-be oligarchs are getting duped before the rest of the real folks. Until something happens to affect the real oligarchs, everything is just maintenance of the same old sleight of hand routinely, routines. Who's got the best router to date?

Here's a real example with issues with real research:
https://hindenburgresearch.com/nikola/
It's pretty old. Stuff takes time to really happen.
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