SPIEGELONLINE INTERNATIONAL: Great political change often begins with the smallest of doubts. Such a doubt is beginning to make itself heard in the US presidential campaign. Free trade, Hillary Clinton is saying, may not be so great after all. Could it signal the beginning of the end for globalization?
It was the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu who said, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." The same can be said of political movements. In their embryonic state, they are often little more than doubts tugging at the corners of a political heart. The Cold War provides a ready example: Growing skepticism with the policy of confrontation eventually gave rise to détente.
China today also owes its very existence to doubts. Communist Party leader Deng Xiaoping had stopped believing in the power of Mao and Marx to build a viable state. Even the British settlers in the New World would still be British today if they had not had their doubts about the good intentions of the mother country. Doubts turned into anger, anger led to war, and in the end the country we know today as the United States was born.
A similar sense of doubt has now entered the US presidential campaign -- and it is one that could lead to change of historical proportions. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has distanced herself from the idea of free trade, a philosophy which has shaped America's worldview since the end of World War II. The theory holds that trade between nations automatically increases the wealth of all participants, and that any form of trade is better than no trade at all. Every American president since Harry S. Truman has spent a good deal of his time in office eliminating customs restrictions and barriers to trade. The End of Globalization? >>> By Gabor Steingart*
* Gabor Steingart, 45, has been a journalist for SPIEGEL since 1990. He is currently reporting from SPIEGEL's Washington, D.C. bureau. His best-selling book "The War for Wealth: Why Globalization is Bleeding the West of Its Prosperity" will be published in the United States in April 2008 by McGraw-Hill.
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