ABSTRACT
Market-driven globalization (MdG), which for many people seems to be a unique and inescapable path to global welfare, is only a rather peculiar form of globalization. MdG has brought about genuine breakthroughs in trade cooperation over the last 70 years. MdG is now at a crossroads for reasons that are explained in this contribution. However, no credible alternatives to market-driven globalization have yet emerged. The fierce competition implied by the radical opening of world markets despite glaring inequalities in competitiveness between countries is causing increased poverty in many countries where a large portion of the population has low purchasing power with many people surviving with less than two dollars income a day. The third section analyzes the ideological and cultural roots of what Michel Houellebecq calls Extension du Domaine de la Lutte (extension of the domain of competitive struggle). The final section outlines what a “soft deglobalization” could be, given the very strong interdependence between countries, in terms of both supply and demand, created by more than 70 years of market-driven globalization, but also imposed by the urgent need to rebalance international exchange since too many countries have large structural trade and payment deficits.
