The progressive age of globalization

After 30 years of globalization of economic liberalism (1979–2009) seeking to increase trade, reduce the size of government and give pride of place to markets and multinational corporations, a new cycle is beginning. Without losing the benefits of openness, it restores the conditions of public sovereignty and places climate issues at the heart of its program to invent a new model of prosperity: a carbon-free world. It is essential to consolidate this new age of globalization if we are to escape the rise of authoritarian nationalism and the profoundly negative consequences of non-cooperative deglobalization. History is made up of phases. The one that began with the elections of Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom in 1979 and Ronald Reagan in the United States in 1980 was based on the transfer of power from governments to markets, particularly financial markets, and to large companies that have progressively become multinational corporations driving globalized value chains. This cycle came to an ideological end with the great financial crisis of 2008, which saw governments return in full force to rescue economies on the brink of collapse. But it ended without a new synthesis to replace the old one and give meaning to this new cycle. It is this new synthesis that we see emerging today: the « globalization of progressivism. » This is what must be strengthened and accelerated from now on. Pascal Canfin, Chairman of the European Parliament Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety outlines its features, identity and strategic objectives for Terra Nova think tank in the following pages.