[…] With bare supermarket shelves and the shortage of PPE supplies, the pandemic brought the fragility of global trade and supply chains into stark relief. The tragic war in Ukraine and the political and economic chaos that followed have further underlined the vulnerabilities of globalization. The world, it turns out, isn’t flat—in fact, it’s quite bumpy. This fragmentation has been coming for decades, observes Foroohar. Our neoliberal economic philosophy of prioritizing efficiency over resilience and profits over local prosperity has produced massive inequality, persistent economic insecurity, and distrust in our institutions. This philosophy, which underpinned the last half century of globalization, has run its course. Place-based economics and a wave of technological innovations now make it possible to keep operations, investment, and wealth closer to home, wherever that may be. […] branko2f7.substack.com | Let’s go back to mercantilism and trade blocs!