Neoliberalism didn’t Fail and isn’t Dead, Yet (Zachary Karabell, Nov 27, 2024, The Edgy Optimist)
[I]n 1999, when those protestors violently railed against globalization in Seattle, the value of global trade in merchandise was just over $5 trillion dollars. That was on a global GDP of about $30 trillion so trade was about one-sixth of that. In 2023, trade in merchandise was about $24 trillion on a global GDP of just over $100 trillion, making trade about a quarter that. Trade in services, which is hard to measure, is another $6-7 trillion at least, whereas in 1999, services trade was much more modest. While trade has dipped slightly in the past two years, it is now a far greater share of global economic activity than ever before.
Trade patterns are also morphing. It is no longer resource-rich countries selling oil, minerals, and commodities to the developed nations of the West and East Asia. It is now everyone selling something to everyone and everyone buying stuff from everywhere. The arrows used to be simple, with the developed world sending raw materials and the industrial powerhouses, and the U.S. most of all, selling finished goods to the world. Now the lines go from Africa to Asia, from Asia to Latin America, from Latin America to Africa, and Africa to Europe, and Europe to the United States, and the United States to everywhere. Hundreds of lines now link nations, peoples, and companies in unprecedented ways.
In the process of that explosion of commerce, the world became vastly richer, and average incomes across the world rose from about $5000 per person to about $17,000 per person in constant dollars (meaning inflation-adjusted). That tripling of income is directly correlated to trade, and hence to the very neoliberalism currently derided.