Copyright © 2021 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College

S I X FAC E S O F G L O B A L I Z AT I O N
Copyright © 2021 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College

Six Faces of
Globalization
W HO W I N S , W HO L O SE S ,
A N D W H Y I T M AT T E R S

Anthe a Rob er ts
and Nicolas L amp

Cambridge, Massachusetts & London, England

2021
 Copyright © 2021 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College

Copyright © 2021 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College

a l l r igh t s r e se rv e d

Printed in the United States of America

First printing

Jacket design by Jaya Miceli

9780674269828 (EPUB)
9780674269811 (PDF)

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Names: Roberts, Anthea (Writer on international law), author. |
Lamp, Nicolas, 1982– author.
Title: Six faces of globalization : who wins, who loses, and why it matters /
Anthea Roberts and Nicolas Lamp.
Description: Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2021. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifers: LCCN 2021007194 | ISBN 9780674245952 (cloth)
Subjects: LCSH: Globalization. | Anti-globalization movement.
Classifcation: LCC JZ1318 .R6245 2021 | DDC 303.48/2–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021007194
 Copyright © 2021 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College

CONTENTS

Abbreviations vii

Part I: Globalization through Dragonfy Eyes

1 Unscrambling Globalization
Narratives 3

2 Why Narratives Matter 20

Part II: Six Faces of Globalization

3 The Establishment Narrative 35

4 The Left-Wing Populist Narrative 55

5 The Right-Wing Populist Narrative 78

6 The Corporate Power Narrative 98

7 The Geoeconomic Narrative 122

8 The Global Threats Narratives 143

Part III: Working with Globalization Narratives

9 Switching Narratives 171

10 Overlaps among Narratives 184

11 Trade-offs among Narratives 203

12 Blind Spots and Biases 220

 Copyright © 2021 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College

CoNtENtS

Part IV: From the Cube to the Kaleidoscope

13 Kaleidoscopic Complexity 245

14 Potential Alliances 262

15 Globalization for Foxes 280

notes 299
acknowledgments 365
index 371

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ABBREVIATIONS

AfD Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany)

AFL-CIO American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial
Organizations
AI Artifcial intelligence
CCP Chinese Communist Party
CEO Chief executive offcer
CETA Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement
CPTPP Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement on Trans-Pacifc
Partnership
ECB European Central Bank
GATT General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
GDP Gross domestic product
IMF International Monetary Fund
IP Intellectual property
ISDS Investor-state dispute settlement
MBA Master of Business Administration
NAFTA North American Free Trade Agreement
SWIFT Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication
TRIPS Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights
TTIP Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
TTP Trans-Pacifc Partnership
UKIP UK Independence Party
USMCA United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement
USTR United States trade representative
WHO World Health Organization
WIPO World Intellectual Property Organization
WTO World Trade Organization
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P A R T I

GLoBALIZ AtIoN tHRoUGH

DR AGoNFLY EYES
 Copyright © 2021 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College

C H A P T E R 1

Unscrambling Globalization Narratives

I n recent years, it has seemed like the world is coming apart at the
seams. Many of the apparent certainties of the post–Cold War era lie
in tatters. In the West, what appeared to be a broad political consensus
on the value of free markets and liberal trade has given way to increas-
ingly acrimonious debates about who wins and who loses from economic
globalization. Are Mexican workers stealing US and Canadian jobs? Has
the global 1 percent rigged the game for its beneft? Is China engaged in a
stealthy campaign for global supremacy? Are we all bound to lose in a
world of untrammeled climate change and deadly pandemics?
From the collapse of the Soviet Union until the global fnancial crisis
in 2008, the dominant narrative in the West highlighted the benefts of
economic globalization. When the Cold War ended without shots being
fred, the Western model of free market capitalism appeared to have van-
quished all ideological rivals: the “end of history” was nigh.1 Pro-market
economic reforms swept country after country, trade and investment trea-
ties were signed, new international institutions were created, and cross-
border trade and investment soared.
Despite the dizzying pace of change, Western governments and the
economic establishment heralded the developments as exciting and posi-
tive. Economic liberalization was portrayed as a “rising tide that lifts all
boats,” a way to “grow the pie” so that everyone—developed and devel-
oping countries, rich and poor—would be better off. Globalization was
seen as an unstoppable but overwhelmingly benefcial force. Free trade
was touted as a win-win outcome that would create peace and prosperity
for all.
To be sure, globalization did not always run smoothly. As the econo-
mist Branko Milanovic pointed out in 2003, the prevailing view of

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globalization represented “only one, positive, face of globalization while

entirely neglecting the malignant one.”2 Yet episodes such as the Asian
fnancial crisis in 1998 and the Argentinian debt crisis in 2001 were
largely treated as bumps in the road rather than signs that the world
economy was on the wrong path. The voices of detractors in the West,
such as the protesters who battled police in the streets of Seattle to derail
a ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1999,
were drowned out as the political and intellectual elites enthusiastically
embraced economic globalization.
But this dominant narrative has come unstuck. In the aftermath of
the 2008 global fnancial crisis, rival stories about economic globaliza-
tion began to make signifcant inroads in the West. Starting in 2011, the
Occupy Wall Street protesters popularized the notion of a rift between
the 1 percent and the rest of the population; they challenged the idea that
the gains from globalization were either trickling down or being redis-
tributed through government action, and they put concerns about in-
equality frmly on the political agenda. After the 2009 euro crisis and
the arrival of refugees from the Syrian civil war, Europe was rocked by
austerity politics and fears about Muslim immigration, which led to a
hollowing out of centrist political parties in favor of more extreme par-
ties on both the left and the right.
The virtues of economic interdependence came under sustained fre
in many Western countries, but nowhere more prominently than in the
United States and the United Kingdom, which had been bastions of both
economic globalization and neoliberal ideology. In 2016, the United
Kingdom voted to leave the European Union (EU) as Brexit voters vowed
to “take back control” over borders and regulations. A few months later,
Donald J. Trump was elected president of the United States, having risen
to prominence by taking a frm stance against the establishment con-
sensus in favor of free trade and globalization. Lambasting the “Amer-
ican carnage” of “rusted-out factories” in manufacturing communities
and decrying the dangers posed by immigrants had been signature ele-
ments of Trump’s campaign.3
By the end of 2020, the United Kingdom had left the EU, and the
United States had charted a new approach to trade on everything from
engagement with China to support of the WTO. The election of Joe Biden
to the US presidency heralded a more moderate approach, but not a re-
turn to the old consensus. The sense that the West fnds itself in an ep-
ochal struggle with China only intensifed, while the rise of giant tech

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corporations with an unprecedented capacity to surveil and manipulate

people’s actions and beliefs created a lingering sense of dread. And the
reality of greater—even potentially catastrophic—threats was crystal-
lizing in many people’s minds. The devastating impact of climate change,
as well as our apparent political inability to do anything meaningful
about it, began to hit home as fres swept across Australia, the Amazon,
and California. These disasters overlapped with the coronavirus pan-
demic, which sparked unprecedented disruptions to public life, a severe
economic downturn, and growing concerns about the risks posed by
global connectivity and economic interdependence.
In sum, political life in Western countries has become more unset-
tled than at any other time since the end of the Cold War. The centrist
consensus that sustained several decades of economic globalization has
frayed. Views that were relegated to the political fringes even a few
years ago have found their way into mainstream debates in many coun-
tries, and in some cases have come to shape government policy. In
many Western democracies, the lines of political battle have not only
moved but also multiplied: as the old division between left and right
gives way to multiple vectors of political disagreement, old alliances
are unraveling and new ones are being formed. Whether and when a
new normal will be found, and what its contours might be, remains
uncertain.

Unscrambling the Rubik’s Cube

It is a confusing time, and our old mental models are increasingly unreli-
able guides to our complex and evolving reality. We are at a critical junc-
ture: a relatively long period of stability in mainstream thinking about
economic globalization has given way to a situation of dramatic fux.
During such junctures, narratives assume particular relevance, because
they offer new ways for us to understand what the problem is and what
should be done about it. Narratives provide the tools to contest the old
normal and establish the contours of the new.4
We are scholars of international trade and investment law who follow
these debates intently, and the growing multiplicity of arguments about
who wins and who loses from economic globalization reminded us of
the confusion of a scrambled Rubik’s cube (Figure 1.1). The colors were
all jumbled up, with each face representing an incoherent and confusing
mix of arguments and concerns about trade, inequality, disintegrating

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G L o B A L I Z At I o N t H R o U G H D R A G o N F LY E Y E S

Fig. 1.1: A Scrambled Rubik’s Cube

Credit: The image of the Rubik’s Cube
used by permission of Rubik’s Brand Ltd.
(www.rubiks.com).

communities, corporate power, public health, and environmental catas-

trophe. Could we unscramble this Rubik’s cube? we wondered. Was there
a way to arrange the different-colored pieces of the puzzle into coherent
narratives, and to fashion a framework to show how these narratives re-
late to each other? Could this help us to better understand the political
moment we found ourselves in and provide us with tools to analyze poten-
tial paths forward? As we disentangled the debates that had been playing
out in the Western media, six prominent narratives about the winners and
losers from economic globalization emerged, which we conceptualize as
existing on the six faces of the Rubik’s cube.

The Top Face of the Cube: Everybody Wins

According to some economists, if you think that globalization impover-
ishes countries and destroys communities, you have it all wrong. Sure,
you may have lost your job because workers in other countries are paid
less, but that is not at all different from losing your job because workers
in the factory next door are more effcient or because technological pro-
gress has rendered your skills obsolete. The market is simply doing its
work. You should improve your qualifcations to get a better job; in the
meantime, you still beneft from globalization since it gives you access to
cheaper products. The process of adjustment may be hard at times, but
it is a short-term cost that we have to accept in the interest of long-term

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prosperity. The end result will be a more effcient economy, lower prices,
and more abundant consumer choice.
In this view, the pushback against economic globalization by people
who feel that they have lost out is simply a natural reaction to the cre-
ative destruction that necessarily accompanies progress. The appropriate
response is to help individuals adjust to the competition unleashed by glo-
balization by offering them retraining and allowing them to share in the
gains from trade. Adjustment assistance that eases workers into new jobs
not only helps to realize the effciency gains derived from the reorganiza-
tion of the international division of labor but also is a political impera-
tive, since it shores up public support for international integration. The
bottom line is that the economic gains from trade more than suffce to
compensate anyone who may have lost out, so that everyone can ultimately
beneft from free markets and liberal trade.
We call this “everybody wins” view the establishment narrative,
because it was the dominant paradigm for understanding economic glo-
balization in the West in the three decades following the end of the Cold
War. The view refected a consensus of the main political parties in most
Western democracies and beyond, and it has been espoused by many of
the institutions that serve as the guardians of the international economic
order, such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF),
and the WTO. Many powerful actors still endorse this narrative, arguing
that free trade not only increases prosperity but also supports other goals,
such as promoting peace. Since the establishment narrative has been
ruling the world and also represents the sunniest view of globalization,
we visualize it as situated on the top of the cube.

The Four Sides of the Cube: Winners and Losers

The establishment narrative now fnds itself besieged from all sides. Con-
cerns about the impact of free trade on workers and the environment
have bubbled up previously, but discontent with economic globalization
tended to be suppressed in mainstream circles in the West. In the decade
following the global fnancial crisis, however, narratives that highlight
how economic globalization produces both winners and losers have re-
turned to the center of political debate. These currents have pushed us
off the sunny top of the cube, over the edges, and down to the four faces
on the cube’s sides (Figure 1.2). Instead of relatively limited squabbles
between the center-left and center-right on whether, when, and how to
redistribute the gains from trade, we now confront four narratives that

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G L o B A L I Z At I o N t H R o U G H D R A G o N F LY E Y E S

LI ING
ST
G
IN T
PU-W
W S
T- LI
H U
FT

IG OP
R P
LE
PO

GLOBAL THREATS

Fig. 1.2: the Solved Cube

Credit: The image of the Rubik’s Cube used by permission of Rubik’s Brand Ltd. (www.rubiks.com).

present a much more fundamental challenge to the assumptions under-

lying the establishment perspective.
The establishment narrative looks at the world economy as a whole
and treats countries as the relevant actors; it is at these levels and units
of analysis that the superior effciency of a global division of labor in
which every country focuses on its comparative advantage is most ap-
parent. The narrative emphasizes absolute rather than relative gains, and
the metric it employs is economic, typically gross domestic product (GDP).
Proponents of the four challenger narratives do not necessarily contest
that economic globalization has produced absolute economic gains at the
aggregate level, whether measured nationally or globally. However, they
focus on the distribution of those gains, both within and across coun-
tries, and derive much of their energy from channeling the disappoint-
ment, fears, and anger of the losers. Where these four narratives differ
from each other is in which actors they identify as having won or lost,
and in why they think it matters.
On the left of the political spectrum, we see two narratives that em-
phasize how gains from economic globalization have fowed upward to
rich individuals and multinational corporations. The left-wing populist
narrative focuses on the ways in which national economies are rigged to
channel the gains from globalization to the privileged few.5 Proponents
of this narrative point out that even as countries have seen their GDPs

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rise, many have also experienced a sharp increase in inequality, with a

growing divide between rich and poor and a hollowing out of the middle
class. Left-wing populism expresses itself in vertical hostility; its propo-
nents stand up for the ordinary people who have lost out to the corrupt
elite.6 Whereas some proponents point the fnger at chief executive off-
cers (CEOs), bankers, and billionaires (the top 1 percent), others take aim
at the educated professional class and the upper middle class more broadly
(the top 20 percent). Wherever the line is drawn, however, left-wing pop-
ulists agree that the middle class, the working class, and the poor have
lost out.
Instead of singling out domestic elites, proponents of the corporate
power narrative argue that the real winners from economic globaliza-
tion are multinational corporations, which can take advantage of a global
marketplace to produce cheaply, sell everywhere, and pay as little in taxes
as possible. These companies use their power to shape international rules
in areas that advantage them, such as trade and investment, while lob-
bying against effective international cooperation on subjects that might
disadvantage them, such as taxation. In this way, multinational corpora-
tions manipulate the network of domestic and international rules to max-
imize their profts and minimize their responsibilities. According to the
corporate power narrative, economic globalization produces many
losers—workers, communities, citizens, even governments—but only one
winner: corporations.
Although both of these narratives focus on the upward redistribution
of wealth, they differ in their emphasis. The left-wing populist narrative
zeroes in on domestic problems, highlighting the explosion of inequality
within countries. The corporate power narrative, by contrast, adopts a
transnational approach and treats multinational corporations and the
transnational working class as the key actors. The two narratives are
often intertwined in places such as the United States and the United
Kingdom, where many on the left are broadly critical of owners of sub-
stantial capital, whether individual or corporate. In many western Euro-
pean countries, by contrast, where levels of domestic inequality are lower,
the corporate power narrative features more prominently, as was evident
in the protests across Europe in 2015 and 2016 against the Transatlantic
Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
On the right of the political spectrum, we fnd two narratives about
winners and losers that primarily see the gains from globalization fowing
sideways to foreigners and foreign countries. In the right-wing populist

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narrative, workers, their families, and their communities lose from glo-
balization, both economically and in a cultural sense.7 This narrative’s
emphasis varies in different countries. In the United States, where the loss
of blue-collar jobs to China and Mexico has devastated manufacturing
communities, the narrative has a strong anti-trade element. In western
Europe, anti-immigrant sentiment and concerns about a loss of sover-
eignty are central features of the narrative, whereas anxieties about the
impact of international trade are less pronounced. In the United Kingdom,
for instance, many of those who voted for Brexit did not oppose free
trade; they rebelled against what they perceived as dictates from the EU
institutions in Brussels and longed to regain control over immigration.
The right-wing populist narrative shares with the left-wing version a
deep distrust of elites, but the two narratives part company on what they
blame the elite for: whereas left-wing populists fault the elite for enriching
themselves at the expense of the working and middle classes, right-wing
populists denounce the elite for failing to protect the hardworking na-
tive population from threats posed by an external “other.” The right-
wing populist narrative thus has a strong horizontal us-versus-them
quality, whether expressed through concern about protecting workers
from the offshoring of jobs or guarding them against an infow of im-
migrants who might compete for those jobs, live off the welfare system,
or threaten the native community’s sense of identity.8 The right-wing pop-
ulist narrative also highlights geographical divisions within countries,
such as the diverging fortunes of thriving cities and declining rural areas.
For proponents of the narrative, these geographical divides map onto dif-
ferent value systems: rural areas are bastions for conservative cultural
values such as stability, tradition, patriotism, and loyalty, whereas urban
centers represent an untethered and amoral “globalism.”9 For proponents
of the narrative, these cultural cleavages are more signifcant than divi-
sions based on class or income per se.
The geoeconomic narrative also focuses on an external threat, but of
a different kind: it emphasizes economic and technological competition
between the United States and China as great-power rivals. Although
both countries have gained from economic globalization in absolute
terms, in relative terms China has closed the gap on America. Concerns
about the interplay of economic security and national security have waxed
and waned over the years; the United States treated the Soviet Union as
a security threat during the Cold War and Japan as an economic com-
petitor during the 1970s and 1980s. But the United States increasingly

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perceives China as both an economic competitor and a security threat,

lending the geoeconomic narrative an urgency that it did not have during
the Cold War. Although the narrative features most prominently in Amer-
ica, it is gaining ground in other Western countries as well, where China
is increasingly regarded as a strategic competitor and a potential secu-
rity threat rather than merely as an economic partner. Instead of ap-
plauding trade and investment as enhancing economic welfare and in-
creasing prospects for peace, the geoeconomic narrative emphasizes the
security vulnerabilities created by economic interdependence and digital
connectivity with a strategic rival.
Although both the right-wing populist and geoeconomic narratives em-
phasize external, horizontal threats, they differ in key ways. The former
focuses on cultural as well as economic losses, while the latter is more
mindful of relative economic power of countries and its capacity to under-
gird political and military power. The former primarily laments the loss of
the manufacturing jobs of the past, while the latter focuses on winning the
race in the technologies of the future, such as ffth-generation (5G) net-
works and artifcial intelligence. And the former targets Polish plumbers
who undercut local workers, whereas the latter casts a critical eye on Chi-
nese scientists and engineers who might steal Western technology.

The Bottom Face of the Cube: Everybody Loses

The narratives we have discussed so far assume either that everyone wins
from economic globalization (the top face) or that economic globaliza-
tion produces both winners and losers (the four faces on the sides). By
contrast, on the bottom face of the Rubik’s cube, we locate narratives
that see all of us as at risk of losing from economic globalization in its
current form. These narratives portray economic globalization as a source
and accelerator of global threats, such as pandemics and climate change.
Some of these narratives focus on how global connectivity increases the
risk of contagion, both of the viral and economic kind. Others warn that
the skyrocketing carbon emissions associated with the global diffusion
of Western patterns of production and consumption are endangering both
people and the planet. These global threats narratives emphasize our
common humanity; their proponents call for global solidarity and inter-
national cooperation in the face of common challenges.
Proponents of the global threats narratives start from the observation
that everything is interdependent: our economic systems are located within
our social and political systems, which in turn are embedded within

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our environmental ecosystems and planetary boundaries. According to

these narratives, we need to redefne the goals of our economies to en-
able individuals and societies to survive and thrive within the limits of
our planet. This can mean emphasizing resilience over effciency in our
supply chains and sustainability over proft-seeking in our economies.
Unless we fashion a more sustainable and resilient global economy, they
warn, we run the risk that everybody will lose. We will not lose equally,
however: some people and some countries will suffer frst or worst.
Proponents of these narratives argue that we need to be attentive to
these distributional questions, either for moral reasons (because we
have an obligation to look out for those who are most vulnerable) or for
instrumental reasons (because no one will be safe until everyone is safe).

Globalization through Dragonfly Eyes

Debates about economic globalization often revolve around the question
of whether particular narratives about who wins and who loses are right
or wrong. That is not the question that we seek to answer in this book.
We will not tell you what to think about economic globalization. Instead,
we try to show how we can think about the current controversies over
economic globalization in productive ways.
We use the metaphor of the Rubik’s cube as a meta-framework for
understanding how the six main narratives in Western debates relate to
one another. We show how the narratives stress different facts or inter-
pret the same facts in divergent ways, as well as how they differ in their
levels and units of analysis and their metrics of evaluation. We distill the
narratives by grouping together story lines and arguments that share cer-
tain core elements, such as which actors they identify as winners and
losers, and whether they view gains as having moved upward (to the elite)
or outward (to a foreign “other”). In doing so, we provide a high-altitude
map and analytical framework for understanding these confusing de-
bates. A schema of the narratives is shown in Figure 1.3.
Narratives provide the story lines through which we perceive and com-
municate our understanding of reality and express our values.10 Political
scientists and policy analysts have long recognized that narratives not
only refect and affect our understanding of reality but also shape our
actions.11 Recent attention to narratives among prominent economists is
particularly striking. Robert Shiller has called for the development of a
“narrative economics” to analyze the narratives that people develop about

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 Establishment Narrative
Developed Country Developing Country

Rich and poor people in developed and

WIN-WIN
developing countries gain from economic

WIN-LOSE
globalization.

Left-Wing Populist Narrative Corporate Power Narrative Right-Wing Populist Narrative Geoeconomic Narrative
Developed Country Developing Country Developed Country Developing Country Developed Country Developing Country Developed Country Developing Country

The elites have gained at the expense of the Multinational corporations have gained at the Workers in developing countries have gained Certain developing countries, such as China,
middle class and poor in both developed and expense of workers, governments, and citizens at the expense of workers in developed have gained at the expense of certain

WIN-LOSE
developing countries. in developed and developing countries. countries. developed countries, such as the US.

Global Threats Narrative

Developed Country Developing Country
Absolute gains
Copyright © 2021 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College

Relative gains
Fig. 1.3: Schematic Representation of
the Rubik’s Cube Narratives about
Economic Globalization
Credit: © Anthea Roberts and Nicolas Lamp.
Everybody ultimately loses from economic
globalization, though poor people and
developing countries will lose the most.
LOSE-LOSE
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G L o B A L I Z At I o N t H R o U G H D R A G o N F LY E Y E S

the economy and the pathways through which they spread, given that nar-
ratives represent “major vectors of rapid change in culture, in zeitgeist,
and in economic behavior.”12 For John Kay and Mervyn King, narratives
are the most powerful mechanism available for organizing our imperfect
knowledge in conditions of radical uncertainty: in a complex world, nar-
ratives are necessary to help answer the question “What is going on
here?”13 Meanwhile, Dani Rodrik has argued that economic and cultural
narratives are crucial to understanding the populist backlash against glo-
balization, since they provide “direction and content” to the economic
grievances caused by globalization.14
We construct the narratives that we present in this book from state-
ments by politicians, journalists, academics, and citizens; they appear in
various guises in our newspapers, magazines, books, and TV shows, on
social media, and in personal conversations (Figure 1.4). Although some
of the narratives have been strongly shaped by specifc actors, they lie be-
yond the control of any particular actor, as anyone can employ the framing
and analytical moves of a narrative. Right-wing populism lives on past
Trump’s presidency, for instance, just as left-wing populism continued to
thrive after Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders conceded the US Demo-
cratic primary. None of our narratives can be attributed to a single au-
thor, and even someone whom we identify as a proponent of a certain
narrative may not subscribe to all of its elements. The same actor may
embrace multiple narratives or different narratives in different settings.
Narratives are often resistant to change, even in the face of contradic-
tory empirical evidence, because of their intuitive plausibility, the force of
their metaphors, the emotions they provoke and channel, and the way
they stabilize assumptions for decision-making. Accordingly, whether or
not we think a narrative is factually correct, we need to understand its
power in public discourse and in policy formation. We all gravitate toward
certain narratives. But healthy public debate and deliberative decision-
making require that, in addition to defending our preferred narratives,
we understand the best versions of the arguments made by others. To
further this objective, we try to present charitable and coherent versions
of each narrative without sitting in judgment of them. Although assessing
the accuracy of the narratives’ empirical claims is essential for developing
sound policy, the necessary frst step is to understand one another’s nar-
ratives and the values that animate them.
Our approach is informed by the conviction that when dealing with
contested issues such as economic globalization, it is crucial to explore

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Establishment Left-Wing Populist Right-Wing Populist

Corporate Power Geoeconomics Global Threats

Fig. 1.4: the Narratives Refected in Covers of the Economist
Note: Covers of The Economist of March 18, 2017 (“On the up”), January 22, 2011 (“The
rich and the rest”), March 26, 2016 (“Winners take all”), October 21, 2017 (“Left behind”),
October 18, 2018 (“China v America”), and August 4, 2018 (“In the line of fre”), with
labeling by the authors.
Credit: © The Economist Newspaper Limited, London.

multiple perspectives. No single narrative can capture the multifaceted

nature of such issues, and no perspective is neutral. Each narrative dis-
tills a certain set of experiences and tells part of the story; none tells the
whole. Each narrative embodies value judgments about what merits our
attention and how we should evaluate what we see; none is value free. In
Milanovic’s words, globalization “presents different faces to different people.
Depending on where we live, whether we are rich or poor, where we stand
ideologically, we are bound to see the process differently.” Considering

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G L o B A L I Z At I o N t H R o U G H D R A G o N F LY E Y E S

multiple narratives in a structured way allows us to be conscious of how

our approach fts within the broader discursive universe, and what
others might be seeing and valuing that we might be missing. It forces us
to take in the many faces of economic globalization.15
We live in highly polarized times. In many Western countries, the elec-
torate is becoming more divided, and individuals are growing more dis-
trustful of those holding different political views. People are increasingly
sorting themselves geographically so that they are more likely to live and
work with others who have similar backgrounds. Cable television and so-
cial media have encouraged the development of echo chambers that rein-
force existing views even as they stigmatize and delegitimize alternative
viewpoints. Our political discussions are rife with condescension and
contempt—sometimes we treat others as though they were too stupid to
understand the facts or their own interests, or too self-interested to care
about the well-being of anyone other than themselves. At a critical juncture,
when we need to have an open debate about the path forward, we have in-
stead adopted some very bad habits in how we engage with one another.16
We believe that taking an empathetic approach is a frst step to over-
coming polarization and facilitating constructive disagreement. As social
psychologist Jonathan Haidt explains: “If you really want to change
someone’s mind on a moral or political matter, you’ll need to see things
from that person’s angle as well as your own. And if you truly see it the
other person’s way—deeply and intuitively—you might even fnd your
own mind opening in response. Empathy is an antidote to righteousness.”17
Helping readers achieve that sort of cognitive empathy—where you un-
derstand another approach from within its own frame of reference,
whether you agree with it or not—is a key purpose of this book.18
Our effort to differentiate various narratives and integrate them into
a meta-framework is not just an attempt to get people with different per-
spectives to better understand one another. It is also informed by the
science on how to best understand complex and contested issues such as
economic globalization themselves.
Complex integrative thinking involves at least two steps. The frst is the
willingness to accept that there are different ways of looking at an issue
and the ability to see problems from different perspectives (differentiation).
The second step is the ability to draw insights from each so as to integrate
them into a coherent understanding or approach (integration). As political
scientist and psychologist Philip Tetlock has shown in his work on fore-
casting, our best chance of understanding complex issues lies in seeing

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U NSC R A m BLI N G GLo BA LIZ AtI o N N A RR AtIVES

them through “dragonfy eyes.” Dragonfies have compound eyes made up

of thousands of lenses that give them a range of vision of nearly 360 degrees.
Dragonfy thinking involves synthesizing a multitude of points, counter-
points, and counter-counterpoints. Tetlock’s studies show that people who
integrate insights from multiple perspectives are likely to develop a more
accurate understanding of complex problems than those who rely on a
single perspective.19
Viewing complex problems through dragonfy eyes is also useful in
identifying potential alliances and brokering compromises. In studies of
peace and confict, psychologist Peter Suedfeld and his colleagues found
that leaders who demonstrate low levels of integrative complexity are less
likely than their peers to produce negotiated outcomes and more likely
to oversee violent eruptions. The inability to understand the perspectives
of others or to see how different issues could be traded off detracts from
our ability to fnd peaceful solutions. By contrast, leaders who score high
on integrative complexity have a greater chance of fnding peaceful ways
to resolve conficts. They can better understand the perspectives and pri-
orities of different sides in a way that facilitates trade-offs and creative
solutions that meet each side’s core concerns.20 These are precisely some
of the qualities and approaches that we wish to foster in these debates.

From the Cube to the Kaleidoscope

The dragonfy approach to complex integrative thinking informs the plan
of this book. After explaining in Part I what narratives are, why they are
important, and why we need to consider multiple narratives, in Part II
we lay out six competing narratives about the winners and losers from
globalization. Each chapter takes the reader on a journey through a dif-
ferent narrative, presented on its own terms. We invoke the texture and
feel of these narratives by recounting how prominent contemporary ad-
vocates have narrated these perspectives in public debates, particularly
during the past few years, which have seen a marked unraveling of the
mainstream consensus of the post–Cold War era. We focus primarily on
the narratives that became salient in Western countries, particularly in
the United States and the United Kingdom, where the pushback against
economic globalization has been the most forceful.
But “solving” the Rubik’s cube in this way not only clarifes the six
main narratives that we believe are driving Western debates; it can also
provide the starting point for further analysis. In Part III, we shift gears

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G L o B A L I Z At I o N t H R o U G H D R A G o N F LY E Y E S

from a narrative approach to an analytical one. We move from presenting

the narratives as freestanding intellectual constructs to showing how ac-
tors can (and often do) use them as tools to achieve strategic ends. Thus,
we examine how different actors deliberately switch from one narrative
to another to advance interpretations of policy challenges that suit their
interests or accord with their values and how, in so doing, they highlight
certain issues and possibilities while obscuring others. We explore how
actors combine multiple narratives in formulating policies or reaching
agreements, which creates both alliances and tensions. And we consider
how the different values that the narratives embody require diffcult trade-
offs when actors seek to combine narratives.
The six faces of globalization that get most of the attention in Western
debates also have blind spots and biases—a point we highlight by exam-
ining additional perspectives from outside the West. 21 Although the
Rubik’s cube narratives enjoy some currency around the world, other nar-
ratives that better refect the distinctive historical experience and current
positionality of countries outside the West are often more prominent.
These tend to receive only passing attention in Western debates and some-
times run counter to dominant Western perceptions. To convey a sense
of some of these alternative story lines, we sketch four additional narra-
tive strands—the neocolonial narrative, various Asia-rising narratives,
narratives against Western hegemony, and a “left behind” narrative. Un-
derstanding these narratives—an undertaking to which this book can
make only a minor contribution—is indispensable for anyone trying to
comprehend truly global issues.
In Part IV, we move from analysis to method. We explore how we can
use multiple narratives to understand other multifaceted and evolving
phenomena, including climate change and the coronavirus pandemic.
Viewing these phenomena through multiple lenses allows us to blend the
insights of different narratives and to appreciate these phenomena in their
kaleidoscopic complexity. In some ways, different narratives complement
each other by reinforcing similar concerns from different angles or by
shedding light on different aspects of a phenomenon. In other ways, the
narratives offer contradictory accounts of what has happened and how
to evaluate it. These moments of confict can help guide our analysis and
search for more facts, and sometimes indicate the contours of trade-offs
that will need to be made. This method bears a closer resemblance to
turning a kaleidoscope than to solving a Rubik’s cube: with each turn,
the colored pieces shift, new refections are created, and new patterns

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U NSC R A m BLI N G GLo BA LIZ AtI o N N A RR AtIVES

appear. But there is no end to the process and no single solution to the
problem.
Trump’s defeat has revived optimism among some commentators
about a reset on economic globalization, but few expect a wholesale re-
turn to the free market liberalism that led to the explosion of trade and
investment fows during the 1990s and 2000s. Any attempt to defne a
new normal will need to be sensitive to the critiques we describe and to
the ways in which the world has changed since the high point of economic
globalization following the Cold War. Biden’s trade agenda refects this
insight: it embraces the establishment narrative’s enthusiasm for trade’s
potential to generate prosperity while tempering it with a commitment
to prioritizing the welfare of US workers (a concern of both right-wing
and left-wing populists), an awareness of the need for greater regulation
of corporate power (including in the areas of taxation and antitrust), and
a determination to compete aggressively with China economically and
technologically while cooperating on global threats such as climate change
and pandemics. In the penultimate chapter of the book, we explore the
potential for similar combinations of narratives in relation to the role of
work and workers in society, international economic interdependence,
and policy responses to climate change.
Ultimately, this book offers a meta-framework for understanding
Western debates about economic globalization and a kaleidoscopic
method for identifying factual and normative disagreements, as well as
common themes and potential alliances, across various narratives. The
book also showcases a method—looking at complex issues through drag-
onfy eyes—that can serve us well in examining other contentious de-
bates and policy challenges, from pandemics to the climate crisis. We
hope that this approach will enable us to understand not only where we
have come apart but also how we might come back together.

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INDEX

The letter t following a page number denotes a table; the letter f denotes a fgure.

Abascal, Santiago, 96 American Federation of Labor and

Abiy Ahmed, 259, 260 Congress of Industrial Organizations
Achey, Jonathan, Jr., 85, 87 (AFL- CIO), 104–105, 106, 107, 196, 201
acquisitions, foreign, 138–140 Andersen, Inger, 154
adjustment, 7, 44–47, 53, 77, 82, 83, 85–86. Angell, Norman, 43–44
See also job loss; manufacturing jobs; Anthropocene, 156, 219
offshoring; policy / policymaking; Anti-Fragile (Taleb), 151
workers antitrust policy / enforcement, 19, 99, 116,
advantage, comparative, 38, 110, 210 118–119, 173–175. See also Big Tech;
advocacy, 27 corporate power narrative
AFL- CIO (American Federation of Labor Apple, 103, 117. See also Big Tech
and Congress of Industrial Organ- Argentinian debt crisis (2001), 4, 225
izations), 104–105, 106, 107, 196, 201 Arnade, Chris, 83, 85, 267, 292–293
Africa, 225–226; coronavirus and, 259–260; Aronoff, Kate, 277
in left behind narratives, 236–239; artifcial intelligence (AI), 119. See also
poverty in, 236, 237f, 239 innovation; technology; technology
Africa-rising narrative, 237–239 industry
agreements, incompletely theorized, 184, Asian Century, 228, 229f
187, 198. See also narratives, overlapping Asian fnancial crisis (1998), 4
agriculture, 206–207, 223, 224 Asia-rising narratives, 18, 226–230,
AI (artifcial intelligence), 119. See also 260–261
innovation; technology; technology asset value protection, 113
industry Atkinson, Robert, 173
Akamatsu, Kaname, 237 Atran, Scott, 294
alcohol abuse, 84, 89, 232 austerity, 4, 63–64
Alden, Edward, 47 Australia: China and, 129, 133–134, 150,
alliances. See consensus; narratives, 218, 257–258; concerns about loss of
overlapping; perspectives, multiple; control in, 96; fres in, 5, 143, 218–219;
policy / policymaking inequality in, 59f, 75; Philip Morris case
Alston, Philip, 76, 251 in, 115–116; subsidies to automotive
Amazon, 117, 119, 120. See also Big Tech sector in, 53

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Australian Signals Directorate, 133 billionaires, 9; left-wing populist narrative

Austria, 278 on, 66–68; tax rates of, 68–70. See also
authoritarianism, digital, 133 elites
automation, 48, 78. See also job loss; Binder, Alan, 37
productivity biologics (drugs), 193, 197, 201
autonomy, 95–96, 100, 101, 208, 209–210. Blackwill, Robert, 124, 126
See also Brexit; immigration; nativism Blair, Tony, 96
Autor, David, 47 Blaming China (Shobert), 180
autoworkers, 85–87. See also manufac- blind spots. See narratives, non-Western;
turing jobs; North American Free Trade perspectives, non-Western
Agreement (NAFTA) Blinken, Antony, 123
awakening-giants narrative, 227–228 Blyth, Mark, 28
Axelrod, Robert, 294 Bode, Thilo, 109, 115
Bolsonaro, Jair, 221
bailouts, 62, 65. See also global fnancial Bork, Robert, 118, 174
crisis (2008) Boudreaux, Donald, 46
bait-and-switch, 30–31 Boulding, Kenneth, 154
Baker, Dean, 67 Bown, Chad, 255
Baldwin, Richard, 45, 149, 255 Brazil, 221
Balsillie, Jim, 120 Breaking the China Supply Chain (report),
bankers, 9. See also elites; fnancial 129–130
institutions Brewster, David, 242
bankruptcy, 73, 76 Brexit, 10, 47; autonomy and, 95, 96;
banks. See fnancial institutions debates on, 43; immigration and, 4, 10,
Bannon, Steve, 97 79, 91; reaction to, 281, 289; Some-
bargaining power, 99, 100, 101–108. wheres vs. Anywheres in, 87–88. See
See also corporate power narrative also European Union (EU); United
Beigneux, Aurélia, 255 Kingdom (UK)
belittling, 30 Britain. See Brexit; United Kingdom (UK)
Bendell, Jem, 154 Brooks, David, 61
Berger, Jennifer Garvey, 285–286 Brown, Jerry, 98
Berlin, Isaiah, 280 buffers, 150–151
Bhagwati, Jagdish, 221, 228 Buffett, Warren, 68
Bhutan, 158 Bütikofer, Reinhard, 142
biases. See narratives, non-Western; buybacks, 66
perspectives, non-Western
Biden, Joe: antitrust enforcement and, 174; Cain, Cody, 180
China and, 19, 127; climate change and, campaigns, 22, 29–31. See also Biden, Joe;
276–277, 296; combining of narratives by, Sanders, Bernie; Trump, Donald J.;
182; election of, 4; on security, 130, 262, Warren, Elizabeth
289–290; on supply chains, 272; trade Canada: agriculture in, 207; CETA and,
policies, 19, 188, 262; workers and, 266 112; coronavirus and, 257; dependence
Big Tech, 118–119, 120, 173–174, 175, on China, 129, 257; ISDS and, 114–115;
177–178, 258. See also antitrust NAFTA, 99, 104–105, 106, 107, 114–115,
policy / enforcement 191–202; supply failures during corona-

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virus pandemic in, 148; USMCA, 191, rare earth market and, 130, 211; regula-
201; workers in, 266 tory approach to internet, 133; relation-
capitalism: in China, 234; climate change ship with West, 210; rivalry with US,
and, 156; patriotic, 178; Russia’s 10–11, 122–123, 136 (see also geoeco-
transition to, 230–233 nomic narrative; technology); share of
capitalism, surveillance, 175–176 world economy, 229f; state-capitalist
carbon emissions. See emissions orientation, 234; stealth war by, 122;
Carle, Benjamin, 38 in surveillance capitalism analysis, 176;
Carlson, Tucker, 89, 205 as threat, 10–11, 136 (see also geoeco-
Carney, Mark, 150, 219 nomic narrative; security); Trump and,
Carter, Ashton, 126, 177 126–127, 180, 186–188, 190–191, 234,
Carter, Jimmy, 181 255; as “villain,” 176–178; Western cor-
Case, Anne, 48 porations and, 122 (see also geoeconomic
Cass, Oren, 89, 206, 267, 268 narrative; security); Western oppression
Centre for International Governance of, 234; WTO and, 48, 234. See also
Innovation, 120 Asia-rising narratives; coronavirus;
centrism, 4, 5 supply chains
CEOs (chief executive offcers), 9, 66–68. China Shock, 47–53
See also elites Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 122,
CETA (Comprehensive Economic and 135–136
Trade Agreement), 112, 113–115 cities, 83–85, 88, 256, 267
CFIUS (Committee on Foreign Investment citizenship, 86, 87, 101
in the United States), 138 Ciuriak, Dan, 112–113, 118
Chancel, Lucas, 161 class, socioeconomic: climate change
change: after Cold War, 3; openness to, 88 and, 278; coronavirus and, 256–257;
characters, 25 divisions between, 31; educational
Charlesworth, Anita, 151 attainment and, 62; morals and, 69;
chief executive offcers (CEOs), 9, 66–68. social mobility, 62, 76–77, 287. See also
See also elites bankers; billionaires; chief executive
childcare, cost of, 73 offcers (CEOs); elites; middle class;
China, 10; awakening-giants narrative, poor; professional class; workers;
227–228; Belt and Road Initiative, 132, working class
174, 238; Biden and, 19, 127; changing Clausing, Kimberly, 38, 52
relationships with, 296; climate change climate change, 5, 143–144, 152–163;
and, 160, 247, 248, 253; economic rise coronavirus and, 254; corporate power
of, 124–129; effciency vs. security and, narrative and, 253–254, 278, 297; devel-
210–212; establishment narrative and, oping countries and, 246–248; distribu-
47–53, 142; 5G technology and, 133–136, tion and, 161–163, 292; economic
214, 215 (see also Huawei); GDP of, 126f; modeling of effects of, 217–218; estab-
innovation imperative for, 137; integrative lishment narrative and, 249, 274–278,
approach to, 285; interdependence with 297; geoeconomic narrative and,
US, 131, 132f; investment in US / Europe, 252–253, 278, 297; increasing cen-
138–140; Made in China 2025 policy, trality of, 296–297; kaleidoscope
129, 235; narratives in, 221, 234–235; method and, 246–254; left-wing
purchases of technology companies, 138; populist narrative and, 249–251,

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climate change (continued) complexity, 241–243

274–278, 297; perspectives on, 18, Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement
246–254; policymaking and, 251, on Trans-Pacifc Partnership (CPTPP),
273–278; regulations and, 160; responsi- 113
bility for, 160, 161, 162f, 246–247; Comprehensive Economic and Trade
right-wing populist narrative and, Agreement (CETA), 112, 113–115
251–252, 274–278, 297; risk assessment concentration, 116–120, 149–150, 258.
in, 217–219; as security threat, 248; See also antitrust policy / enforcement;
sustainability narrative and, 246–248, Big Tech
252–253, 258, 274–278; switching concepts of globalization narratives,
narratives and, 181–182; as threat 166–168t
multiplier, 253. See also emissions; confict, 41, 122, 184, 188–189, 212, 214.
global threats narratives; sustainability See also peace; security
narrative connectivity, 131–133, 146–147. See also
climate change denial, 32, 251, 275 5G technology
climate modeling, 217 consensus, 169, 282. See also narratives,
Clinton, Bill, 29, 192 overlapping; perspectives, multiple;
Clinton, Hillary, 29, 125–126 policy / policymaking
coalitions, 169, 187–188. See also narra- consolidation. See antitrust policy /
tives, overlapping; policy / policymaking enforcement; concentration
Cohn, Gary, 49 conspiracy theories, 32
Cold War, 3, 125, 131, 232–233. See also construction work, 50
Soviet Union consumers, 100–101, 205–206
Colgan, Jeff, 180 consumption, 153, 160–161, 204–207, 267,
collective goods, protection of, 209–210. 275. See also climate change; growth,
See also autonomy; democracy economic
Collier, Paul, 239 contagion, 146–147. See also coronavirus;
colonialism, 224, 236. See also neocolonial global fnancial crisis (2008)
narrative contempt, 30
Commission for the Human Future, 144 control. See autonomy
Committee on Foreign Investment in the Cook, Chris, 151
United States (CFIUS), 138 cooperation, 182–183, 255, 273
communism, 230, 232. See also Soviet Corbyn, Jeremy, 60, 68, 76
Union coronavirus, 5, 296; Africa and, 259–260;
community, 256. See also place climate change and, 254; concentration
comparative advantage, 38, 110, 210 and, 149–150; connectivity and, 146–147;
competition: vs. cooperation, 273; effects of, corporate power narrative and, 258;
78; elites’ protection from, 56; lack of, 119 decoupling and, 254; developing
(see also antitrust policy/enforcement; countries and, 259–260; distribution
concentration); trade restrictions and, 41 and, 292; establishment narrative and,
(see also protectionism; tariffs; trade 255; framing of, 183; geoeconomic
agreements); US-Chinese, 10–11, narrative and, 254, 257–258; immigra-
122–123, 136 (see also China; geoeco- tion and, 256; interdependence and,
nomic narrative; technology) 144, 150, 214, 254, 257, 269, 271;
complex integrative thinking, 16–17, left-wing populist narrative and, 254,
261 256–257, 266; need for redundancy

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