Friday, June 24, 2016

The End of Globalization


I remember when the EU was just a concept and the talk of how it would change the world by creating a United States of Europe. It was decades ago, when the idea of globalization was just beginning to take root. With yesterday's UK vote to leave the EU, that global movement may be coming to an end. It seems isolationism and nationalism are on the rise once again. It's not only in Europe. It's happening here in the U.S. too. We see it with the likes of Trump and his supporters. There's an increasing fear that the rest of the world is out to take advantage of you, no matter where it is you happen to be.

The thing is, it's easy to play into the fears of globalization. It's easy to tell the story of immigration taking away jobs. It's easy to point to money that flows out of one nation and into the hands of another. It's easy to get people angry that their taxes are going to help people who didn't contribute to those taxes. Yet it's very hard to communicate the benefits of globalization.

It's hard to convince people that the good of the many is good for them. It's difficult to illustrate how deep cooperation between nations can be a benefit to their lives. Yes, there are dangers when governing bodies are seen as remote, or in the case of the EU, when foreign countries can impose costs on to members of another nation. But it's the spirit of globalization that can solve the difficult problems the world faces. It's the spirit of globalization that can provide stability to our world. And it's the spirit of globalization that has given those of us in the West a standard of living that couldn't have been imagined 50 or 100 years ago.

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