“So one big promise of globalization was that countries, as they became more integrated in the global economy, would also modernize on a political dimension,” said Freakonomics Radio host, Stephen Dubner in the introduction to his recent podcast Has Globalization Failed?
Globalization was supposed to boost prosperity and democracy at the same time. The 1990s ushered a golden age of globalization, when the world seemed to be coming together. Nations were becoming more economically interdependent. The internet fostered worldwide communications. The ideological contest between communism and capitalism appeared to be over. Democracy was spreading a set of universal values - freedom, equality, human rights.
“I’m curious how successful or unsuccessful you think that’s been?,” Dubner asked his podcast guest Anthea Roberts, professor at the Australia National University and co-author of the 2021 book Six Faces of Globalization: Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why It Matters.
“One of the things that I think has clearly come out from both Russia and China is that that has not borne fruit in quite the way the United States may have hoped,” answered Roberts. “But part of it may also be that the U.S. may be retelling that story a little bit. It may have been that they wanted to say that it was about democracy, but actually a lot of it was also just about their own economic interests, and now their understanding of their economic interests have changed.”
Globalization “has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty,” she added. “It’s really increased consumption. And it’s made our lives much more diverse, everything from food to electronics. But I think at the same stage, if you look on other metrics, it’s had some really damaging effects. We have seen left-behind communities that have created much more of a backlash. We’ve also seen increase in suicide, increase in drug addiction, we are seeing those communities really falling apart.”
In other words, whether economic globalization has been successful, unsuccessful, or something in between depends on the stories we tell each other. We don’t all tell the same story, and we tend to discount or ignore stories that are different from the ones we subscribe to. In her book, Roberts tells six very different globalization stories:
- The Establishment Narrative. Economic globalization is a rising tide that lifts all boats. “We call this everybody wins view the establishment narrative, because it was the dominant paradigm for understanding economic globalization in the West in the three decades following the end of the Cold War.” Many still believe that free trade increases prosperity and promotes peace.
- The Left Wing Populist Narrative: “National economies are rigged to channel the gains from globalization to the privileged few.” There’s been a sharp increase in inequality, and the gains from globalization have gone largely to the elites at the expense of the poor and the hollowing of the middle class.
- The Right Wing Populist Narrative: “Workers, their families, and their communities lose from globalization, both economically and in a cultural sense.” This narrative has strong anti-trade and anti-immigrant sentiments. Elites are blamed for having failed to protect their domestic populations from the economic threats that have devastated their communities.
- The Corporate Power Narrative. Multinational corporations are the real winners from economic globalization at the expense of workers, governments, and citizens. Multinational corporations have taken advantage of a global marketplace “to produce cheaply, sell everywhere, and pay as little in taxes as possible.”
- The Geoeconomic Narrative. Certain developing countries, especially China, have gained at the expense of the US and other developed countries. While both countries have gained from economic globalization, China has been closing the gap and the US increasingly perceives China as both an economic competitor and a security threat.
- The Global Threats Narrative: Everybody ultimately loses from economic globalization, though poor people and developing countries will lose the most. Economic globalization is a source and accelerator of global threats such as pandemics and climate change.
Dubner discussed these narratives with Roberts in his podcast, asking Roberts a number of questions.
Which of these narratives lines up best with how you see the world? Roberts wouldn’t pick a favorite. She pointed out that the narratives aren’t mutually exclusive. They each have their share of advocates and address a different set of concerns. Conversations about globalization often get heated because if you’re looking through the lens of one narrative, it can be really hard to consider the view from another.
“I am much more interested in giving people tools that help them in how to think about complex problems rather than telling them what to think about complex problems,” she added. “How do you weigh economic efficiency against concerns about traditional loyalty or how do you weigh economic efficiency against concerns about national security? I don’t actually think that there is a clear right answer to that.”
How influential has the Western media been in not just presenting but shaping the economic globalization reality? “The media reflects reality, but also helps shape the next round of reality,” replied Roberts. While reporting and trying to make sense of what they see, the media creates ways of understanding events and storylines that then influence how people perceive their lives.
“One of the things you’ve seen in the U.S. is a bit of a reckoning of the need for greater inputs and diversity in terms of how you’re reporting on things domestically. But I think that there would also be an argument for doing that internationally, because just as your east and west coasts dominate in the United States, the Western media and the English-speaking media dominate globally. That makes it just much harder to understand perspectives from elsewhere.”
Dubner asked about the Chinese perception of the US. China used to admire the US for its prosperity and superpower status. But as China has gained on the US, that respect has significantly declined, and they cannot believe how chaotic America seems to have become.
Does that change of perception affect the geopolitical relationship between the US and China? The change of perception is real, said Roberts. Instead of asking, “how can we be more like America?” Chinese are now asking “how can we make sure that we don’t end up with that sort of inequality and polarization?”
“I also think that there has been a real sense in China that the United States is trying to contain China’s rise, and that that is something that really pricks a strong national consciousness because of their experience with the Century of Humiliation at the hands of the West. If you treat China like the enemy, China will become the enemy.”
Is the global economy actually globalized? “I think it has never been fully globalized, and it’s becoming less globalized,” replied Roberts. Some things have globalized more than others, like capital and trade in goods. But even then a lot more trade happens more closely than at further distances. We haven’t globalized labor, and immigration levels are not massively high. We’ve thought of the internet and Web as being truly global, but China, Russia, and other countries have imposed restrictions on internet access. “We’re seeing fragmentation in a whole variety of areas.”
What about the globalization of ideas? How freely are ideas now flowing around the world? “You definitely saw a wonderful flow of ideas and collaboration among scientists with respect to the Covid-19 pandemic, for example,” replied Roberts. “In many ways, science is much more globalized than many other areas.” However, there are also very strong asymmetries, and biases toward the West, such as what languages do most people use, what media do they read, and where are the best universities located? We might see more of a rebalancing with the rise of Asia.
She added that some of the dynamics we’re now seeing in the US will have a chilling effect on the global flow of ideas, such as targeting research collaborations between Americans and Chinese institutions, and targeting people of Chinese nationality or ethnicity that have been working in the US for years. “I think we’re going to see more separation of the technological ecosystems between China and the West, and that will make academic and scientific collaboration harder.”
Dubner concluded the podcast by asking Roberts: what would you say to encourage a more balanced perspective on economic globalization? “I would say consciously try to put yourself in multiple different positions,” she replied. “Consciously try to think, ‘What would the world look like if I was a manufacturing worker in one of these towns? What would the world look like if I was sitting in Beijing and had the experience of the Century of Humiliation and I was now looking at these American approaches? What would the world look like if I was sitting in Russia and I had gone through the terrible ’90s of the loss in income and the security challenges?’ Really empathetically try to situate yourself in multiple different perspectives.”
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