THE FEAR OF GLOBALIZATION IN EUROPE IS REAL

The age of globalization began on the day the Berlin Wall came down. From that moment in 1989, the trends evident in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s accelerated: the free movement of capital, people and goods; trickle-down economics; a much diminished role for nation states; and a belief that market forces, now unleashed, were unstoppable.

Europe was supposed to be big and powerful enough to protect its citizens against the worst excesses of the market. Nation states had previously been the guarantor of full employment and welfare. The controls they imposed on the free movement of capital and people ensured that trade unions could bargain for higher pay without the threat of work being off-shored, or cheaper labor being brought into the country.

In the age of globalization, the idea was that a more integrated Europe would collectively serve as the bulwark that nation states could no longer provide. Britain, France, Germany or Italy could not individually resist the power of trans-national capital, but the EU potentially could. The way forward was clear. Move on from a single market to a single currency, a single banking system, a single budget and eventually a single political entity.

But Europe has failed to fulfil the historic role allocated to it. Jobs, living standards and welfare states were all better protected in the heyday of nation states in the 1950s and 1960s than they have been in the age of globalization. An increasing number of voters believe there is not much on offer from the current system. They think globalization has benefited a small privileged elite, but not them. They think it is unfair that they should pay the price for bankers’ failings. They hanker after a return to the security that the nation state provided, even if that means curbs on the core freedoms that underpin globalization, including the free movement of people.

Self-evidently, large numbers of people across Europe do not believe a flexible, globalized economy is working for them. Voters have legitimate grievances about an economic system that has failed them.

Globalization, by its very nature, is disruptive - it rearranges where and how work is done and where and how profits are made. Things that are disruptive, of course, are destabilizing and create large pools of winners and losers. Any society, but particularly democratic societies, will tolerate such disruption only if there is confidence that the process is fair and broadly beneficial. Globalization will work for everyone only if all countries abide by the same set of rules, hammered out and enforced by some form of technocratic global government. The reality is, however, that most countries are unwilling to give up their sovereignty, their distinctive institutions and their freedom to manage their economies in their own best interests. Not China. Not India. Not the members of the European Union, as they are now discovering. Not even the United States.

In the real world there is a fundamental incompatibility between hyper-globalization on the one hand and democracy and national sovereignty on the other.

Across the 28 EU member countries,according to a survey undertaken in 2016 by the Bertelsmann Foundation, 45% of  respondents said they see globalization as a threat, while 55% see it as an opportunity.

1. Austria: 55%
2. France: 54%
3. Poland: 50%
4. Hungary: 47%
5. Germany: 45%
6. Netherlands: 40%
7. Spain: 39%
8. Italy: 39%
9. UK: 36%