And you can stretch the wave analogy in two other ways. By many measures the world was much more global 100 years ago. Pundits at the time babbled about how wonderful new things like the telephone meant that countries could never go to war, and that trade barriers would continue to fall. But globalization relies on political will. Look around the world, and many of the key political arguments between Islam and the West, Euroskeptics and Europhiles, the new Left and the old are all variations on this one underlying conflict.
Globalization ought to win, but politically it s a hard sell.
There s a backlash building up around the world witness the riots in Seattle and Washington, the conflicts between Europe and the United States over food, the growing resentment against American cultural imperialism that could wreck the current period of global integration. First, that it means that big faceless corporations will rule. In fact globalization tends to help small firms, even small low-tech ones like the Madini family s perfumery in the Bazaar in Tangiers, by bringing the world to their door. Second, that it means the triumph of global products. There are very few Coca-Colas, and even that sugary substance has to change its formula just to keep different parts of Japan happy.