JD Vance on Reversing 40 Years of Globalization: What It Would Mean, by the Numbers

The vice president holds with a view of U.S. economic history that claims that globalization was a mistake and that things would be better if it hadn’t happened. In a recent video he speaks about the need for patience from voters because “trying to undo 40 years of globalization [is] . . . going to take time.”

So what would it mean to turn back the clock on the last 40 years? In one big number, it would mean a ~70 percent reduction in global GDP. That would be the largest degrowthing event in history by a fairly large measure. During the Great Depression, global GDP fell by about 15 percent and U.S. GDP by about 30 percent at the low ebb. During the Black Death, European per capita output actually rose because of, well, labor scarcity. (Talk about your broken windows!) If anyone is aware of an event that wiped out 70 percent of global production, I’m curious to hear about it. (The only one that came to mind for me was the Permian-Triassic Extinction Event about 250 million years ago.)

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Daniel Foster

Daniel Foster is a contributing editor at National Review.

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JD Vance

The vice president holds with a view of U.S. economic history that claims that globalization was a mistake and that things would be better if it hadn’t happened. In a recent video he speaks about the need for patience from voters because “trying to undo 40 years of globalization [is] . . . going to take time.”

So what would it mean to turn back the clock on the last 40 years? In one big number, it would mean a ~70 percent reduction in global GDP. That would be the largest degrowthing event in history by a fairly large measure. During the Great Depression, global GDP fell by about 15 percent and U.S. GDP by about 30 percent at the low ebb. During the Black Death, European per capita output actually rose because of, well, labor scarcity. (Talk about your broken windows!) If anyone is aware of an event that wiped out 70 percent of global production, I’m curious to hear about it. (The only one that came to mind for me was the Permian-Triassic Extinction Event about 250 million years ago.)