Global warning
Academics try to define globalisation in all sorts of technical ways but the simple evidence is all around us: intercontinental travel, offshoring, shopping on Amazon, even Premiership footballers. Technology has done much to accelerate globalisation, and the internet has brought it right into people’s homes.
The emergence of China and India as major industrial and trading nations, and the break-up of the old Soviet empire, have been powerful catalysts for the acceleration of globalisation. The UK economy is no longer an autonomous business unit and has to compete internationally for resources such as raw materials, labour and investment spending by multinational companies, and for a share of the global market for goods and services.
This was one of the prime minister’s key themes at the June EU summit in Brussels. He wondered why Europe was so inward-looking, spending money on protecting its agricultural sector when the real challenge was to compete in world markets with the likes of China and India. Tony Blair wanted the EU’s industrial support programmes to focus on science and technology as a means of raising the added-value content of production. Few would disagree.
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