An alternative view of Globalization 4.0, and how to get there by Guy Standing published by World Economic Forum (1/2019)
“Professor Richard Baldwin presents Globalization 4.0 as an oncoming era dominated by international arbitrage in services. I would like to reiterate an alternative – or perhaps complementary – perspective that draws on recent work and is inspired by the economic historian Karl Polanyi.
Professor Baldwin calls the pre-1914 period Globalization 1.0, the post-1945 era Globalization 2.0, and implies that our most recent era was Globalization 3.0. The latter is characterized, in his view, by “factories crossing borders”. Since he sees Globalization 4.0 as distinctively disruptive – notably due to the “globotics upheaval”, the blend of globalism and robotics – one might suggest that 4.0 should be followed by 5.0, analogous to Globalization 2.0, which overcame the worst excesses of the preceding disruptive phase…”
