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“imagine a world, however, where coin tosses could not be repeated and there was no way of knowing weather a particular coin toss involved either a scrupulously fair coin, or one that was double-header, or double-tailed. this would represent a world that was more than just risky, it would be deeply uncertain. imagine that all decisions in this world were governed by this fundamentally uncertain coin tosses, on an entirely random basis. some people may do very well, where as others may fail very badly indeed. both the winners and the losers might then be tempted to form their own narratives to explain their successes and failures, the winners extolling their imaginary skills, the losers blaming the winners for their imaginary exploitation.”
― Stephen D. King, Grave New World: The End of Globalization, the Return of History

“rising income inequality. not for nothing did Thomas Piketty’s ‘Capital in the Twenty-First Centuryâ€� become a New York Times bestseller. Piketty made the strong claim that the rate of return on capital was, in the absence of wars and revolutions, always likely to be higher than the rate of economic growth. the implication was simply that the already well-off, basically those with no shortage of capital, would steadily get richer”
― Stephen D. King, Grave New World: The End of Globalization, the Return of History

“political order, and political decay, presciently drawing attention to perceived faultlines in American society. the American political system has decayed over time because its traditional system of cheques and balances has deepened and become incessantly rigid. with sharp political polarisation, this decentralised system is less and less able to represent majority interests, but gives excessive representation to the views of interest groups and activist organisations that collectively do not add up to a sovereign American people.”
― Stephen D. King, Grave New World: The End of Globalization, the Return of History

“defining who is to be protected is in effect defining who is not to be protected”
― Stephen D. King, Grave New World: The End of Globalization, the Return of History

“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average”
― Stephen D. King, Grave New World: The End of Globalization, the Return of History

“Differing historical perspectives inevitably shape attitudes towards globalization and its sub-plots. The Western view of globalization has always been just that: a view based on the spread of Western values to the rest of the world. Other parts of the world, with their competing histories and mythologies, are not so immersed in Western values. And from their perspectives, Western values have, in any case, been anything but stable: the imperial attitudes of the nineteenth century, for example, are hardly aligned with the self-determination of the twentieth. During the Cold War, these competing histories and mythologies were typically repressed, thanks to a persistent ideological battle between capitalism and communism. In the twenty-first century they have re-emerged, forcing upon nation states choices that, in an increasing number of cases, end up either restraining the forces of globalization or putting them into reverse. We are returning to a world of territorial disputes, competing ideologies and unstable alliances. It’s as if we’re still coping with Columbus’s unfinished business.”
― Stephen D. King, Grave New World: The End of Globalization, the Return of History

“Yet the interests of the international statesman may not always align with the ‘national interestâ€�, particularly if the statesman is now also a member of some international organization that provides him with a whole bunch of new incentives.21 At that point, the statesman’s role is in danger of becoming disturbingly ambiguous. Does the new international club provide a convenient scapegoat for the delivery of unpopular measures at home, as happened with the imposition of austerity measures in Southern European countries during the Eurozone crisis that began in 2010? Does the homogeneity of view associated with club membership â€� for example, adherence to the Washington Consensus or acceptance of inflation-targeting conventions â€� undermine otherwise legitimate protests at home? Does the new club limit the powers of domestic government through the growth of, for example, a supranational legal authority? And what happens if the views of the international statesman â€� and the new club he has now joined â€� are rejected by the nation he is supposed to represent? None of these issues is new. The scale of the problem is, however, bigger than ever before. Even as markets â€� in trade, capital and labour â€� have become ever more globalized, the institutions able to govern those markets have become ever more fragmented. In 1945, when the United Nations was founded, there were 51 member nations. In 2011, the year in which South Sudan joined, there were 193. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, there is no longer a binary choice between what might loosely be described as US-style free-market capitalism and Moscow-inspired communism.”
― Stephen D. King, Grave New World: The End of Globalization, the Return of History

“In combination, these political and economic forces suggest that globalization, at least of the post-Columbus kind, is simply not inevitable. In this book â€� a deliberate mixture of economics, history, geography and political philosophy â€� I make six key claims: •First, economic progress that reaches beyond borders is not, in any way, an inescapable truth. Globalization can all too easily go into reverse. •Second, technology can both enable globalization and destroy it. •Third, economic development that reduces inequality between nation states but appears to increase it within those states inevitably creates a tension between a desire for overall gains in global living standards and a yearning for economic and social stability at home. •Fourth, the desire for domestic stability may be undermined by huge twenty-first-century migration flows. •Fifth, the international institutions that have helped govern globalization’s advance are losing their credibility: rightly or wrongly, globalization is increasingly seen to work for the few, not the many. Creating new twenty-first-century institutions to combat this perception will not be easy, however, particularly given the potential clash in values between what might be described as Western democracies and Eastern autocracies. •Sixth (and as the Western powers are belatedly beginning to recognize), there is more than one version of globalization. As US relative economic power declines, so other nascent superpowers will be looking to reshape the world around them in ways that serve their own interests and reflect their own histories. If the Cold War was ultimately a binary rivalry, the twenty-first century is likely to see multiple rivalries, closer in nature to the imperial disputes of the nineteenth century. Indeed, President Xi’s speech in Davos in January 2017 only served to reinforce the sense that globalization is up for grabs.”
― Stephen D. King, Grave New World: The End of Globalization, the Return of History

“The US is no longer sure whether its priorities lie across the Atlantic, on the other side of the Pacific or, following the election of Donald Trump as president in 2016, at home rather than abroad. Indeed, President Trump confirmed as much in his January 2017 inauguration speech, stating that ‘From this day forward, it’s going to be only America first.â€� Free markets have been found wanting, particularly following the global financial crisis. Support and respect for the international organizations that provided the foundations and set the ‘rulesâ€� for post-war globalization â€� most obviously, the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the United Nations Security Council (whose permanent members anachronistically include the UK and France, but not Germany, Japan, India or Indonesia) â€� are rapidly fading. Political narratives are becoming increasingly protectionist. It is easier, it seems, for politicians of both left and right to blame ‘the otherâ€� â€� the immigrant, the foreigner, the stranger in their midst â€� for a nation’s problems. Voters, meanwhile, no longer fit into neat political boxes. Neglected by the mainstream left and right, many have opted instead to vote for populist and nativist politicians typically opposed to globalization. Isolationism is, once again, becoming a credible political alternative. Without it, there would have been no Brexit and no Trump.”
― Stephen D. King, Grave New World: The End of Globalization, the Return of History