"The increased global linkages promote economic growth in the world through two key mechanisms: the division of labor and the international spillovers of knowledge"
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Globalization, in Fukui's framing, is less a moral project than an operating system: wire the world together and productivity rises almost automatically. The elegance of the line is how it smuggles a political choice into an apparently technical claim. By naming just two mechanisms - division of labor and knowledge spillovers - he reduces messy debates about winners and losers to a clean growth algorithm. It reads like central banking rhetoric because it is central banking rhetoric: a confidence-building narrative designed to make integration feel inevitable, manageable, and net-positive.
The division of labor is the respectable face of outsourcing and supply-chain fragmentation. It promises efficiency while quietly assuming the social costs can be absorbed elsewhere: displaced workers retrain, regions adjust, governments smooth volatility. "Spillovers of knowledge" is even more strategic. It casts ideas as frictionless and benevolent, moving across borders the way light does, downplaying the asymmetries that decide who captures value: patent regimes, platform control, talent drains, and the fact that learning often follows power.
Context matters. Fukui comes out of Japan's long post-bubble era, when policymakers were searching for growth without inflation, and for legitimacy in a world where capital and production were increasingly transnational. In that setting, global linkages aren't just descriptive; they're prescriptive. The subtext is a gentle warning to domestic audiences tempted by protectionism: opt out, and you don't merely lose trade, you lose access to the world's collective brain.
The division of labor is the respectable face of outsourcing and supply-chain fragmentation. It promises efficiency while quietly assuming the social costs can be absorbed elsewhere: displaced workers retrain, regions adjust, governments smooth volatility. "Spillovers of knowledge" is even more strategic. It casts ideas as frictionless and benevolent, moving across borders the way light does, downplaying the asymmetries that decide who captures value: patent regimes, platform control, talent drains, and the fact that learning often follows power.
Context matters. Fukui comes out of Japan's long post-bubble era, when policymakers were searching for growth without inflation, and for legitimacy in a world where capital and production were increasingly transnational. In that setting, global linkages aren't just descriptive; they're prescriptive. The subtext is a gentle warning to domestic audiences tempted by protectionism: opt out, and you don't merely lose trade, you lose access to the world's collective brain.
Quote Details
| Topic | Knowledge |
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