How globalization became a thing that goes bump in the night
#MMPMIDC7338102
Kobrin SJ
?-/-? 2020[]; 3
(3
): 280-6
PMIDC7338102
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For almost 200 years, globalization has been seen as a positive development,
albeit with costs and benefits, and as progress and modernization, a broadening
of humanity?s scope from the local and parochial to the cosmopolitan and
international. That changed dramatically with the Great Recession, the waves of
migration of the last decade, and the global Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic of
2020. For many, globalization now connotes economic dislocation, increasing
inequality, unwanted immigration, and a vehicle for the transmission of disease.
The pandemic reminds us that most economic activity takes place within national
borders. It has emphasized the dangers rather than the benefits of efficient
linkages between markets, laying bare the dangers of complex global supply chains
where any node can become a ?choke point?, and the risks of overspecialization or
the concentration of technological knowledge and/or production capacity in a
single country or region. A more positive view of globalization will require
restoring the balance between independence and integration, mitigation of its
costs within and between countries, and dealing with redundancy and supply risk.
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