Isn't this more "feh to globalization popularizers like Tom Friedman"?

Globalization may not look like much compared to what some in the popular or financial press have represented, but it's a pretty impressive development compared to what the global economy looked like 30 years ago. Its effects are also a lot more profound in some places than in others. The main point of the article, that globalization is not irreversible, seems inarguable -- except that even in the worst case not all of it will be irreversible.

Doubling, every eighteen months or so, where have I heard that before . . .

So is there a globalization book corollary to Moore's Law?

(actually the rate of the books is faster than Moore's Law, does that mean by the middle of the century, every book published will be about globalization?)

The Library of Congress stats are larger than the author presents. (I'm a 30-year LOC employee, now retired, who's had experience at searching the online LOC catalog [http://catalog.loc.gov]) My initial search shows that there are 599 books in the catalog published in the 1990s that are indexed Globalization, which is an established LOC subject heading (ie, index term, or LCSH in librarianspeak). However, there are an additional 555 books published during that period that have the words Globalization or Globalisation (British sp.) in the title, but are NOT indexed Globalization. So, for example, the book Canada-Japan: Views on Globalization, published in 1990, has the LCSHs International economic integration / Canada--Economic conditions /Japan--Economic conditions, but NOT Globalization. Likewise, the book The Asian Pacific Rim and Globalization, published in 1995, has the LCSHs Industrial location / Industrial policy, but NOT Globalization. I haven't checked for the years 2000+, but likely I'd also find a lot of books which almost certainly are about "globalization" but are not so indexed.

This is frankly a bit silly. Most businesses are small service businesses; a barber shop or restaurant is unlikely to have much "international exposure"; few customer-facing service businesses will ever have all that much international presence. And it fails a simple logic test - a business that's 100% "international" is a foreign business as it has no domestic presence!

Fragile and not inevitable.

It should not be too long before Putin in Russia and Chavez in Venezuela close their dictatorial grips on capital, people, ideas, etc moving across their borders.

Anecdotally, I find lots of evidence of resistance to globalization. I can't find anyone at work who thinks globalization is a good thing. They think its only purpose is to ship jobs overseas for cheap labor. The global ideological hard-left hates Bush and uses that as an excuse to pressure trade. The ideological hard-right is suspicious of immigrants.

Globalization is like capitalism in this respect: it’s much easier to criticize it and call for more government to “solve” some problem than it is to explain the problem was probably caused by government to begin with and markets would fix the problem (Health care, for example).

Fragile and not inevitable.

It should not be too long before Putin in Russia and Chavez in Venezuela close their dictatorial grips on capital, people, ideas, etc moving across their borders.

Anecdotally, I find lots of evidence of resistance to globalization. I can't find anyone at work who thinks globalization is a good thing. They think its only purpose is to ship jobs overseas for cheap labor. The global ideological hard-left hates Bush and uses that as an excuse to pressure trade. The ideological hard-right is suspicious of immigrants.

Globalization is like capitalism in this respect: it’s much easier to criticize it and call for more government to “solve” some problem than it is to explain the problem was probably caused by government to begin with and markets would fix the problem (Health care, for example).