The World’s Imminent Deglobalization?

On Saturday, 3,000 demonstrators turned out in Singapore—in one of the biggest protests in the country’s history—to protest the government’s new plan to increase the tiny nation-state’s immigrant population by nearly two million people by 2030. And who are this proposal’s greatest opponents? The Singaporean middle class, which has increasingly seen its political capital and purchasing power strangled by the influx of wealthy immigrants, mainly from China.

Migration is just one the pillars of globalization that has been badly damaged as a result of the global financial crisis. In a new piece for The National, I argue that—contrary to the hope of many economists, businesspeople and leaders—the global economy is not bound for a new era of increased integration. Oppositely, I contend that today’s crisis will produce the worst deglobalization in modern history; and I explain how migration, foreign lending, and trade will all suffer as a result.

You can read the piece in its entirety here.