Globalisation flattens culture, stability
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The Washington Post on September 20 and the Financialist on October 5 ran separate articles with the same headline, "The end of globalisation?".
The latter listed the reasons for globalisation’s demise: “Slowing economic growth, augmented by rising levels of central government debt, income inequality and high levels of immigration, are important stressors. Others include trade protectionism, an increase in military spending and a move away from democratic governance.”
I would add something else. The globalisation crowd seems anxious to push tradition and culture aside as if they had nothing to offer. Yet tradition and culture offer stability, and it looks like stability is the one thing that the world most desperately needs right now.
Standardising railroads and airports is one thing, but people do not run on wheels or live in aircraft hangars. People have families, neighbourhoods, languages and social identities. They need tradition and culture to remain human, rather than becoming anonymous components of standardised globalisation.
Guy Baker
