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Originally Posted by Zeno
I think you have a historical contradiction implicit in the above statement. Stronger economic growth can stimulate wars (and foster imbalance), not make them less attractive or less numerous. China's growth in the last 25 years is a current example.
It's true that changes in economic growth can lead to changes in the balance of powers, and so lead to conflict. However, this is true whatever the level of economic growth (positive, negative, or flat). The relevant question is whether a high growth environment is more likely to lead to war than a low or flat growth environment. Here I see no reason to think that higher growth would lead to more war.
If anything, your example indicates the opposite. During the Maoist no-growth era in China, we fought a serious proxy war with them in Vietnam. After Deng Xiaoping, we've had much closer and more amicable relations. Or take Russia. NATO has moved closer to war in part because of a promotion of belligerent nationalism by Putin in order to put down domestic unrest caused, in part, by slowing economic growth.
Anyway, the main argument for my view is that greater global trade and more liberal labor markets have decreased the likelihood of war by greatly increasing its cost. As more of a country's economic growth depends on international markets, that country also loses more from the chaos that results from war.
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The rather amorphous term globalization is also somewhat overused today. The process has been ongoing since the late 1400's and previous to that Arab and Viking traders were on the forefront of global trading and economies, for example. It is a continuum, not something that can be extracted in isolation for some current politicalize agenda. The talking head pundits on TV love the term. For the very reason that it is somewhat nebulous and thus can be flinged out for the masses to chew on at every opportunity.
Sure, there is a spiritual connection of sorts to those early traders. But those Viking and Arab economies did not compete with the entire world in a way that most major companies and economies do today.