Germany and the End of Globalization

[marmar]

Germany and the End of Globalization
The number of democratic countries around the world is shrinking steadily, and autocratic countries are registering more patents than the West. A new era is dawning – and it could have dramatic consequences for our work, our money and our lives.

By Thomas Schulz, Martin Knobbe, Martin Hesse, Simon Book, Simon Hage, Georg Fahrion, Michael Sauga und Gerald Traufetter
27.07.2022, 13.54 Uhr


(Der Spiegel) These days, even stoic government leaders seem overwhelmed by the barrage of world crises, tremendous upheavals and changing times. The global financial crisis, the refugee crisis, Brexit, the climate collapse, the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine have all happened in succession. It's more than enough to make a person dizzy. And yet, all this now simply feels like a preview for the massive change that is only now starting to role in: The age of globalization is coming to an end.

Six months ago, that very sentence would have seemed laughable. Economists had calculated that even the pandemic was just a dent in the never-ending frenzy of global trade. Politicians had declared that the ever-growing interdependence of nation-states remained one of the few irrefutable certainties of world politics. The best way forward to a good future, they would have said, would be to move even closer together, networking trade, companies and the economy even more deeply.

Globalization has never been a purely economic phenomenon. For three decades, it was the defining world order, the guiding principle informing all political decisions. It determined how and where we work and how well we live and even who is a friend and who is a foe.

Linked to this was a clear vision of the further development of humanity: that the world would become ever more prosperous, and thus necessarily ever more modern, ever more liberal, ever more democratic. And that it would constantly become more Western. That economic ties would also create common values. And, more importantly: peace – at least more than ever before.

....(snip)....

Global trade won’t collapse entirely, of course. Economies and companies are too closely networked, and the mutual dependencies are too great. Still, as German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock puts it, "it has already been proven wrong that trade alone creates change." And the thesis of the "end of history" promoted by the political scientist Francis Fukuyama shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall and often used in the past as justification for unrestricted hyper globalization, has proven to be just as wrong: The thinking was that liberal democracies and Western market economies would inevitably prevail as the dominant political order.

But for the past several years, studies have noted that freedom and democracy are in retreat worldwide, and that autocratic regimes are on the rise and are becoming more powerful. Between 1970 and 2010, the share of democratic governments in the world more than doubled to 53 percent. Since then, however, the trend has been steadily downward. At the same time, autocracies are increasingly successful economically. They are now the source of a 60 percent share of all patent registrations. ..............(more)

https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/germany-and-the-end-of-globalization-prosperity-under-pressure-a-4f0b98ce-a2a5-4889-8375-d0dcf64cee2c

[Samrob]

1. Thank Trump for making America the showcase for destroying democracy! nt

[Samrob]

2. All this seems true but I still no of know industry in the US that makes safety pins or rubber bands

I hope I am wrong but Americans depend on so many things that we do not make anymore.

[Martin68]

3. How much does a person working a safety-pin-making machine or the robot that does it,

earn compared to 1) the manager of a small niche market agricultural operation, 2) an IT specialist, or a 3) registered nurse?

[appalachiablue]

4. K/R