Martin Wolf defines globalization as connectedness
Wednesday, July 21, 2004 at 5:54PM "Too many countries? Let a splendid new book on globalization be the last for a while: it will not be bettered soon," The Economist, 20-26 July, p. 75.
Nice review of Wolf's well-received book, "Why Globalisation Works." Sent to me by my old mentor at the Center for Naval Analysis, stating that the following line was "pure Barnett":
The Sudans and Somalias, he argues, do bear witness to the limits to globalizationóbut only in the sense that globalization needs to go further. The poorest countries in the world stand mostly outside the global economic system. The challenge for development policy is to connect these countries to the rest of the world.
That does sound like my book, does it not?
Wolf's answeróunfortunatelyóis heavy on humanitarian aid with no serious treatment of security issues. While his book is a good one, no doubt, the idea that you can comprehensively define globalization in strictly economic terms is ignoring the "everything else" that is security.
In my mind, then, Wolf writes a great book on economic globalization but a very incomplete one on globalization as a whole.
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