Question

In your view, is today's political world better or worse than at the end of World War II? State your position and defend your statements.,

Answer 1

A reaction against globalization around the world seems to gain strength. U.S. right-wing and left-wing politicians have called for curbing free trade deals which foreigners or the global elite seek to gain. President-elect Donald Trump championed import tariffs and immigration limits and suggested that international alliances and trade agreements be withdrawn. Meanwhile, populist and nationalist governments in Europe and Asia have gained ground, and voters in Britain have chosen to withdraw from the EU.To some, the time leading up to World War I, which marked the end of a multi-decade expansion of international relations that many call the first phase of globalization, looks ominously like another moment in history. From the mid-19th century to 1914, innovations such as steamships, the telegraph, the telephone and the Suez and Panama Canals have dramatically reduced distances and improved connectivity, and the world has undergone a period of rapid globalization.

The pendulum swung in the other direction in the decades following World War II. The United States led the world in the development and growth of international organizations such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the World Trade Organization's predecessor— bodies that founders claimed could help make another world war unlikely. The planet has since undergone what many consider to be the second great wave of globalization.Today, capital and commerce's free flow exceeds what it was in the pre-World War I era. And the share of foreign-born Americans and the share of wealth held by the wealthiest Americans as a measure of inequality rose to pre-World War I points, as shown in the two graphs below, after falling in the mid-1900s.