Novadays people talk about globalization this and globalization that. But then again one might ask if any HC globalization even exists? The point is that although we have international trade, flow of information and diseases things were even more liberated back in 1913.

Sure international trade wasn't as intense as now but look at the issue qualitatively not quantitatively. Statistics show that back then a greater percentage of GNP was traded overseas. We are richer now but a greater ratio of the general wealth got through international trade before WWI.

The 1871-1913 also saw the world wide Gold Standard for currencies. This level of monetary integration is to be matched although "the dollar standard" did try to catch this up but didn't.

So the point is that what the international trade is going through isn't a new phenomenon. Capital flows are AS free as they were in 1913 but the people is less free to move around. Immigration flows between continents were proportionaly greater back then and so was international trade. They had primitive information networks through cable which is ofcourse crap compared to the internet but they still had one.

We are not entering a period of global economy. Most of the international trade is still intra-nation or intra-region. Factories are moved to the third world countries but the pace isn't what it should be in a truely global economy. The world economy may be described as a highly "inter"-national one but not global. just no

(sources: Hirst&Thompson, Globalization in question)

I've read once that the level of trade in 1914 was only reached again in 1970.

In any case, if you define globalisation as merely the contraction of time and space, then its much simpler than way. It fits everything thats going on.

One might argue that the British Empire represented a globalization of world politics into a single entity, and that we've not recovered since its decline. However, this view is missing the entire point; stability.

The high globalization that was seen pre-WWI was something akin to the British Empire. Most of the trade was between European powers, and most of it was incredibly lopsided. There was no World Trade Organization, there was no thought about the effect of tarriffs. Importing exotic goods from foreign lands does not count as globalisation.

Global trade has to be equal, and it has to benefit both sides in a fair manner. If its cheaper to cut lumber in Canada, then Americans should be purchasing as much Canadian lumber as possible rather than local lumber which is more expensive. They get lumber at a cheaper price. This is current economics. Previous economics was more like, if we have lumber here, theirs is worthless, but we do like that Canadian seal fur, lets buy that. And of course the stuff is expensive, so it eats up a large portion of GNP, but its not really intelligent trade at all.

But the point was that that's not the case. Statistics show that most of the G3 international trade is within their own region: EU within Europe, Japan in East Asia and America with Canada and Mexico. If we were to be in a truely global economy then wouldn't the trade shares between countries be on the same level and not intra-blocks? And why aren't we pouring money to invest Africa where the labor is cheap as shit?

The big difference between the early 20th century and now is this:

Back then, world trade was conducted, but the global scale was mostly within empires. Global french colonies traded with each other, global english colonies, etc. Nowdays, there are no global empires, but the trade between Britain and France for example are much more free and prosperous. Besides, globalization isn't just about trade, it's about information. On the information scale, we are much more than we've ever been, and it's growing exponentially.

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