It has existed since humanity started to trade, share ideas and technologies and move around the world. It accelerated at the time of the industrial revolution, with more production, manufacturing and trade across the world, and it has accelerated massively recently for two reasons. The first is the end of the cold war. We now have one global economy, instead of two blocs, and that integration has speeded up the movement of capital, investment and ideas across the world. The second is the new technologies.
Information technology moves ideas around the world very fast, so capital is more mobile.
That has led to a reduction in barriers to trade and a fall in the cost of international transactions. The global economy is therefore much more integrated now than it was even 10 years ago. The good side of globalisation, which is rarely mentioned, is the diffusion of global norms and values, including the spread of democracy. The proliferation of global agreements on the environment, such as those on ozone-depleting substances, biodiversity and development targets, are the beginning of a global ethic of morality and the inclusion of all. That expectation of the same norms and values is an attractive part of globalisation.