Economic Globalization Is Not Political Globalization

Globalization has fallen into disrepute. More and more people are rejecting it outright as unfair and as a source of all sorts of evil – including economic crises and migration.
This kind of blanket condemnation of globalization however is a huge problem. The reason for this becomes apparent if one considers the fact that globalization has two dimensions, an economic and a political one.
Economic globalization is synonymous with the cross-border division of labor. Today, no country produces solely to satisfy its own needs, but instead also for producers and consumers in other countries. And each country makes what it knows best, relatively speaking.
Economic globalization, with free trade being a natural component, increases productivity. Without it, the poverty on this planet would not have been reduced to the extent it has been over the past decades.
From the very outset, political globalization has nothing to do with economic globalization. It aims to direct and determine all relations between people on the various continents by way of authoritarian rule. The decision about what is being produced and consumed as well as where and at what time isn’t to be found by the free market, the division of labor and free trade, but instead by an ideological-political creative force.

This post was published at Ludwig von Mises Institute on February 27, 2017.