Essay on globalization and peace

While a slight diversion from the usual topics discussed here, I present to you an essay I wrote a few weeks ago on globalization. Specifically on what globalization will do to peace. It has a few interesting ideas, a bunch of not really interesting ideas, and a good point or two. It’s not amazing, but hopefully someone will get some use out of it now that I am done with it… It was for my intro to philosophy class and was pass or fail, I passed.

Peace in a globalized world

A constant fixture of human interaction throughout history has been war. Since war has been a staple of life, we should look as it more of a lack of peace than an outbreak of violence. Despite the complexity of our civilizations today (global telecommunications, space travel, nano technology etc…), war is a part of every day life for a large part of the global population. However, in the newly connected global marketplace, peace has more value—maybe even more value than war. This essay will attempt to answer the question: is peace is attainable in a globalized world? I think we’ll come to see that peace is not only possible, but will be unavoidable if globalization continues.

Globalization is a connected marketplace of economics, education and travel. It is now just as easy to communicate with someone on the opposite side of the globe as it is to communicate with someone on the opposite side of town. Here at HCC there are students from around the world—I have had classes with students from Nigeria, Haiti, Columbia, Brazil, Ecuador, Australia, Vietnam and several other countries. Distances and borders mean less and less in a globalized world, and since the start of history have meant less as time progresses (communication keeps getting cheaper and faster). Because of this, we now depend on each other more than ever, which just may be the best way for us to find peace. Most of globalization happens without the conscience effort of those involved, it’s part of our routine.

According to Fast Company, Wal-Mart alone imports more than $12 billion worth of goods from China every year. Hyundai (of South Korea), while once a breeding ground for jokes by American consumers, is quickly becoming a sales champ in the US, topping 400,000 new car sales last year. The computer that I am typing on now was made in Taiwan, and within a week you can have one shipped to your door from the factory. Our possessions have quickly become a silent atlas, telling the tale of globalization one “Made in” sticker at a time. Would the United States go to war with one of our Asian suppliers? Conversely, would one of our Asian suppliers attack their biggest customers? When the case for the Iraq war was taken to the UN, several countries objected even without hearing the evidence. It came out later that the opposing countries (France, Russia and Germany, among others) all had backdoor deals for Iraqi oil. Maybe the best plan for peace isn’t a treaty but an invoice. Add the threat of nuclear war on top of economic incentives for peace, and the lack of war looks pretty enticing.

The book NonZero: The Logic of Human Destiny uses game theory (popularized by A Beautiful Mind protagonist John Nash) to explain the increasing complexity of human civilizations. It goes as far as saying globalization was inevitable, which as we have seen here means peace is inevitable. Throughout history, we have become more and more globalized—from boats to telegraphs to telephones to satellite communications. Game theory has two choices: zero-sum and non-zero-sum. Zero-sum means one party benefits at the loss of the other. Non-zero-sum means both parties benefit. Our current trade positions are non-zero-sum because we get cheap goods and our trade partner gets jobs. From our view, we might be getting the bad end of the deal because we are losing jobs to countries like India, but we benefit by getting goods at marginal costs and India benefits by gaining a growing middle class. Civilization benefits from non-zero interaction. In NonZero, Robert Wright talks about the growing cost of war to “connected” (read: rich) nations. War is now something poor nations partake in, and rich nations try to quell. Rich nations understand that everyone is better off in a marketplace than in a foxhole.

Trading partners don’t go to war. Nuclear powers don’t go to war. Trading partners that are also nuclear powers (US > China) have twice the reasons to work together. By the way of non-zero-sum game theory logic, all the nations in the world will become globalized, or interconnected, on a long enough timeline. At that point war will be the outlier, not peace. War will be random, not routine. It will likely take longer than we have to wait, but there is hope for our future. It should be noted that terrorism is not included in the definition of war used in this essay. Nations may not fight with each other, but individual citizens may still declare war in a globalized world (e.g. religious extremists that believe the connected world is trying to pollute their faith may bomb buildings).