Globalization: The Tweetstorm

A few weeks ago, VGR put out a call for hundred-tweet threads on a single topic. I slightly misread this as hundred-tweet threads in a single sitting, but a couple hours later it was done.

1. Let’s talk about globalization! It has “global” right there in the name, so it’s obviously about every country. But really, globalization is about just one country. Unfortunately, we don’t know which one. Either America or China, for very different reasons.
2. Globalization is synonymous with America in the sense that it describes how the world changed from 1946 onward, i.e. after America conquered all of the world except a weird communist rump state, which inevitably collapsed.
3. Not only did communism collapse due to internal contradictions, but it only survived due to *external* contradictions. The Soviets were sucking serious wind in the 70s, and managed to get back on their feet by selling oil. (Much more on oil and globalization to come…)
4. So, one version of globalization is that it’s the system America imposed on the world, probably by accident. A bunch of smart Americans got together to decide how the postwar order should look. Everybody else counted up our aircraft carriers and warheads and said “Okay, sure.”
5. But there’s another version. The China version. China is a more literal force for globalization in that it’s the axis on which “developing” countries rotate into being “developed” instead.
6. China’s big competitive strength is in assembling…