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Peder Digre John ONeill ENGL 298 - Writing Link to SIS 201 2 April 2010 Globalization Eternal The world has gone through periods of different intensities of globalization. From

Marco Polo and the Silk Road to the inventions of the airplane and satellite communication, the world has been moving towards a more globalized future. The authors Jeffry Frieden, Fareed Zakaria, and Paul Krugman all view globalization through an economic lens and all come to similar conclusions about the future of globalization. Although history often provides clues to predict future events, nothing is conclusive, including the future of the global economic system. Although this may be valid, it is most certainly true that the world will continue to globalize with no foreseen alternative path. Politics, economics, and technology. These are the things that Zakaria argues control

global growth in The Post-American World. (xii) Zakaria argues that there have been three main power shifts in the last millennium regarding globalization. The Wirst shift was from the small communities worldwide with no global effect to power being centralized in Europe with its expansion in the Wifteenth and following centuries. The second shift was from the Old World to the New when America became industrialized in the nineteenth century. The latter part of the twentieth century marked the third shift in power when America some lost power prestige and the rest of the world had risen. (1) The second shift that Zakaria discusses leads to the notion that globalization became

Americanization. (xxi) The entire world looked to America for ideas and used them as a model that was implemented in their own domains. When the Winancial collapse of 2008

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occurred, it became evident that the American economic ideals cultivated throughout the world may not have been the most successful ideals. The Winancial crisis provided a deWinitive launching point for the growing global movement of the past decades Zakaria calls the rise of the rest in his third shift. (2) America was no longer the be-all, end-all source of information. America was no longer the global mediator, but rather just another participant in the new truly global order. (3) In todays world, people must think with a global perspective. Whether if it is

deciding where to go on vacation or where to Wind the best deals on consumer goods, people think globally. This is in stark contrast to the Wirst golden age of capitalism that Frieden describes in Global Capitalism: Its Fall and Rise in the Twentieth Century as the period before World War One in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The period in between that golden age and today held a time when capitalism as a global whole saw a dramatic decline. After the shock of World War One and the Great Depression, nations turned inward to a period of self-sufWiciency. In the case of Russia, this self- sufWiciency was manifested with the Communist takeover and regime. The opposing ideas, capitalism and communism, eventually separated by the Iron Curtain prevented a truly global order. However, when the Soviet Union collapsed, a new path was paved for globalization, one with the basic ideals of America -- capitalism and democracy. This continued the trend of Americanization. As previously stated, this era ended with the economic collapse of 2008. The economic collapse of 2008 shares common elements with the Great Depression;

it is, however, yet to be seen if it will cause a rethinking of globalization and capitalism as the Great Depression did. There are arguments that could be made for both future paths. The previous golden age and the time leading up to the economic collapse have many

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similarities. The economy at both times was meant to be accessible to everyone. In the Wirst golden age, however, there were no credit cards and there was little personal debt. This differs highly to the second discussed time when nearly both of those things were rampant. At some level, debt is at the heart of the whole story. Since the early 1980s, Americans have consumed more they have produced -- and they have made up the difference by borrowing. (Zakaria xvi) The debt issue and todays technology alone suggests that it is doubtful that the events after the Great Depression will become a pattern. In an article titled The Great Illusion, Paul Krugman expresses the state of todays

globalization by providing even the possibility of a worldwide economic effect from the war in the Caucasus. (Paragraph 1) Krugman expresses perfectly the state of the times discussed by Frieden and Zakaria in the past century when he writes, ...Our grandfathers lived in a world of largely self-sufWicient, inward-looking national economies -- but our great-great grandfathers lived, as we do, in a world of large-scale international trade and investment, a world destroyed by nationalism. (Paragraph 2) Globalizations future growth seems secured due to the very low risk of a major war because of the common ideology of liberal capitalism shared by the Western world. Unless some unforeseen monumental natural disaster or an atomic war occurs, the

future of globalization seems evident. Globalization will continue to occur, especially with modern technologys far-reaching powers. Just as Marco Polo did, people have rediscovered their passion for the world and all its wonders, benign and malign. One thing history has shown is that the when people have a desire as a whole, it is very hard for that desire to not become reality.

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Works Cited Frieden, Jeffry A. Global Capitalism: Its Fall and Rise in the Twentieth Century. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2006.

Krugman, Paul. The Great Illusion. The New York Times 15 August 2008: A17. NYTimes.com, 30 March 2010 <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/15/opinion/15krugman.html?_r=2>.

Zakaria, Fareed. The Post-American World. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2009.