When Globalization Finally Fails and Why
Posted in International News
Aug. 14, 2008 at 11:50
by BrendaBee
Americans tried for the dreamed of world peace with Globalization, or capitalism world wide, under the premise that people who trade together stayed together. The idea is logical as it would give every country in the world a way to gather wealth and therefore well being. The consequence of well-being is a nation has no reason to covet their neighbors wealth. They also have a strong incentive to protect their own wealth. War would be eliminated because war destroys wealth. A simply formula for a simple dream.We Americans really are the worlds cock-eyed optimist! We are the worlds strongest most stable country and this came about because of democratic ideals of freedom for all people and capitalization, or the right to grow wealthy thru individual effort. So why not pass it along? And to go a step further we will even insure that it works by financing it and policing the entire world until every country in the world gets on their feet.
Sounds so good and so reasonable because altruistic behavior is the United State's most favored world position. Understanding the world of men as they really are and not as we wish them to be is the United State's favored self-delusion.
The following article speaks to this self-delusion. BB
http://townhall.com/columnists/VictorDavisHanson/2008/08/14/brave_old_world
Thursday, August 14, 2008
"Russia invades Georgia. China jails dissidents. China and India pollute at levels previously unimaginable. Gulf monarchies make trillions from jacked-up oil prices. Islamic terrorists keep car bombing. Meanwhile, Europe offers moral lectures, while Japan and South Korea shrug and watch -- all in a globalized world that tunes into the Olympics each night from Beijing.
"Citizens of the world" were supposed to share, in relative harmony, our new "Planet Earth," which was to have followed from an interconnected system of free trade, instantaneous electronic communications, civilized diplomacy and shared consumer capitalism.
In reality, to the extent globalism worked, it followed from three unspoken assumptions:
First, the U.S. economy would keep importing goods from abroad to drive international economic growth.
Second, the U.S. military would keep the sea-lanes open, and trade and travel protected. After the past destruction of fascism and global communism, the Americans, as global sheriff, would continue to deal with the occasional menace like a Muammar al-Gaddafi, Slobodan Milosevic, Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong-il or the Taliban.
Third, America would ignore ankle-biting allies and remain engaged with the world -- like a good, nurturing mom who at times must put up with the petulance of dependent teenagers.
But there have been a number of indications recently that globalization may soon lose its American parent, who is tiring, both materially and psychologically."
Yet globalization, in all its manifestations, will run out of steam the moment we tire of fueling it, as the world returns instead to the mindset of the 1930s -- with protectionist tariffs; weak, disarmed democracies; an isolationist America; predatory dictatorships; and a demoralized gloom-and-doom Western elite.
If America adopts the protectionist trade policies of Japan or China, global profits plummet. If our armed forces follow the European lead of demilitarization and inaction, rogue states advance. If we were to treat the environment as do China and India, the world would become quickly a lost cause
If we flee Iraq and call off the war on terror, Islamic jihadists will regroup, not disband. And when the Russians attack the next democracy, they won't listen to the United Nations, the European Union or Michael Moore.
Brace yourself -- we may be on our way back to an old world, where the strong do as they will, and the weak suffer as they must.
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