● Exile Economics: What Happens if Globalisation Fails
Ben Chu
Essay by author via The Next Big Idea Club
The idea that we should reduce dependence on foreigners has been with us for thousands of years. Take the ancient Greek Cynics. Diogenes, who famously lived in a barrel in the marketplace of Corinth, believed that self-sufficiency—living with only what you truly needed—was the highest moral state… This instinct that we are safer, purer, or more virtuous alone is remarkably resilient. It appears under every ideological banner: religious and secular, left and right, nationalist and cosmopolitan, capitalist and communist. So it’s no surprise to see it re-emerge today in debates over trade, global supply chains, and “decoupling.”