21st Century Regionalism: Filling the gap between 21st century trade & 20th century trade rules
Richard Baldwin (MAY 2011)
Globalisation as two unbundlings
Once ICT (information and communication technology) made dispersion of production stages feasible, scale economies and comparative advantage made it inevitable. This is “second unbundling” – the spatial unbundling of productions stages previously clustered in factories and offices. This radically
changed the nature of international commerce giving rise to what might be called the trade-
investment-service nexus.
"Money makes possible the unlimited accumulation of property without causing waste through spoilage. He also includes gold or silver as money because they may be “hoarded up without injury to anyone,” since they do not spoil or decay in the hands of the possessor. The introduction of money eliminates the limits of accumulation. Locke stresses that inequality has come about by tacit agreement on the use of money, not by the social contract establishing civil society or the law of land regulating property. Locke is aware of a problem posed by unlimited accumulation but does not consider it his task. He just implies that government would function to moderate the conflict between the unlimited accumulation of property and a more nearly equal distribution of wealth and does not say which principles that government should apply to solve this problem."
Richard Baldwin (MAY 2011)
Globalisation as two unbundlings
Once ICT (information and communication technology) made dispersion of production stages feasible, scale economies and comparative advantage made it inevitable. This is “second unbundling” – the spatial unbundling of productions stages previously clustered in factories and offices. This radically
changed the nature of international commerce giving rise to what might be called the trade-
investment-service nexus.
In the two years since both brands split apart in value perception, Amazon has steadily climbed while Walmart has eroded. Walmart recently suffered nine consecutive quarters of declining same store sales until six months ago. However, in its most recent quarter, overall earnings again declined – 13%.
There was speculation that Walmart’s real interest was in Kosmix’s founders, Venky Harinarayan and Anand Rajaraman, who have unbeatable pedigrees in the world of e-commerce technology. The pioneering comparison shopping site they co-founded in 1996, Junglee, was acquired by Amazon in 1998 for $250 million; inside Amazon, the pair helped to create the e-retailer’s huge marketplace of third-party retailers and came up with the technology behind Amazon Mechanical Turk. Perhaps Walmart—which paid $300 million for Kosmix, according to AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher—wanted Harinarayan and Rajaraman to work similar miracles for Walmart.com?
Those were the questions on my mind when I drove down to the former Kosmix headquarters, now WalmartLabs, in Mountain View a couple of weeks ago. But Rajaraman also pointed to some more interesting applications for Kosmix’s social genome technology—like monitoring social media conversations in the vicinity of a physical Walmart store for signals about what goods that store should stock.
Anand Rajaraman: Walmart is the biggest retailer in the world, but they are not the number-one player in e-commerce—Amazon is. About a year ago, Walmart decided that e-commerce is a strategic priority. It’s not like they had not been investing in e-commerce, but they said, ‘It’s time to go to the next level.’
Limits to accumulation Important concept by John Locke that needs to be enjoyed like fine wine:
"Money makes possible the unlimited accumulation of property without causing waste through spoilage. He also includes gold or silver as money because they may be “hoarded up without injury to anyone,” since they do not spoil or decay in the hands of the possessor. The introduction of money eliminates the limits of accumulation. Locke stresses that inequality has come about by tacit agreement on the use of money, not by the social contract establishing civil society or the law of land regulating property. Locke is aware of a problem posed by unlimited accumulation but does not consider it his task. He just implies that government would function to moderate the conflict between the unlimited accumulation of property and a more nearly equal distribution of wealth and does not say which principles that government should apply to solve this problem."
"... he goes on to explain the hypothetical rise of property and civilization, in the process explaining that the only legitimate governments are those that have the consent of the people. Therefore, any government that rules without the consent of the people can, in theory, be overthrown."
"In Chapter V of his Second Treatise, Locke argues that the individual ownership of goods and property is justified by the labour exerted to produce those goods or utilise property to produce goods beneficial to human society."
