Touch Me Not

From The World is Flat, globalised view of the world of trade and commerce, and the level playing field it advocated for all players to stay in the contention, to the Why Your World is Going to Get a Whole Lot Smaller, and the end of Globalisation, that focuses on protectionism, it has been a brief flirtation indeed with the global village!

Where Friedman saw immense possibilities in a globalised market, economist Jeff Rubin now sees the beginning of regionalism and shrinking markets. Thanks to oil prices that the IEA predicts will skyrocket when demand picks up, and supply can’t match.

The ‘incredible appetite the Chinese have for oil’ (look who’s talking!), ultra-cheap cars to appear in India and spread globally, excessive consumption and local subsidies in the Middle East, are among reasons cited by Rubin for the crunch. Oil price will be so high that few can afford, suburbs will suffer and cities get denser, local agriculture will sprout, domestic manufacturing will override cheap foreign labour, and all this will start happening in 18 months!

Carbon tariffs are absolutely necessary, says Rubin and are the first thing countries like Canada and the United States should put in place if they’re going to impose carbon caps on their own industry. Stern, who warned against tariffs as a protectionist measure, is living in a fantasy land if he thinks we have to time to negotiate international agreements, adds Rubin. ‘We have no time, he said, adding that it’s time to start playing hardball with countries like China.’

This is exactly the kind of language that will vitiate the international climate of co-operation. Is equity important or equal commitments? Can the west afford to play ‘hardball’ when it has been the perpetrator of climate change? How come protectionism that was once a dirty word is no more so?

Talking of carbon tariffs on products and services, and focusing on licence fees from new technologies rather than facilitating tech transfer to the poor nations, is tantamount to bullying. A people that have refused to ‘compromise on their lifestyle’ except when depression forced it upon them, is asking a people who never had a lifestyle to talk about, to start paying up!

What do you think? Let us know. Lifestyle apart, there are other questions too.
Is the developing world aware of what is happening or expected to happen in the west? How prepared is it to go self-reliant? Do governments realize the growing significance of domestic market and do they have a game plan in mind?

Have we had enough of globalisation? Can we survive as small, isolated entities?