Yet there are some strong parallels, Feinman says. “Modern globalization has been spurred by some of the same forces that powered the pre-WWI epoch: New technologies, an open, free-trade, rules-based world economic system underpinned by the leading power of the day, and a period of general peace among major countries.”
Today, the free flow of capital and trade exceeds what it was in the pre-WWI era. And the share of Americans who are foreign-born and the share of wealth owned by the richest Americans – an indicator of inequality — have returned to pre-World War I levels, after dipping during the mid-1900s, as the two graphs below show.
As before World War I, the second great wave of globalization led to a surge in immigration and increasing inequality in some countries, which likely helped to trigger the current backlash.
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