Introduction

Summary

Most of us take globalization for granted. It is the only economic model we have known. The Anglo-Saxons introduced it after 1945,1 shaped by the wisdom of the British, in particular John Maynard Keynes, and supported by the might of the United States of America.

Since then it has been a one-way traffic. More and more of the same. More trade liberalization, more abolishment of restrictions for capital movements, removal of barriers for services, followed by a whole string of measures designed to open the global economy.

Concurrently efforts to design and implement an international, political decision-making machine have emerged. The substance (trade, capital movements, and services) jumped from the nation state to the international level. The steering mechanism to ensure some kind of political control followed. Politicians, whether they liked it or not, have been forced to move some, and for some countries (primarily the member states of the European Union), an overwhelming part, of political control out of the national context, to be exerted at the international level. Ingenuity has characterized this process, that is, by introducing the pooling of sovereignty to be exercised in common instead of leaving it the exclusive prerogative of the nation state.

And yet this model is not the only one.

Back in the 1890s, the world saw globalization that was so strong, so manifest, so deeply rooted in nation states as well as internationally, that it was regarded as untouchable. Trade was basically free and so were capital movements. The rich and well-established industrial countries such as the United Kingdom invested heavily abroad and stood as the undisputed creditors, sponsoring industry and infrastructure all over the globe. There was an international currency — gold and/or Pound sterling; it had the same validity. War or conflict among the major powers was regarded as impossible, an affront to humanity, incompatible with an enlightened humanity.

Just thirty years later — half a lifetime — the world went through a mass slaughter that ripped the mask off what was supposed to be humanity and civilization.