This past September my wife Susan and I visited the fortifications at Sagres, the farthest southwesterly point of Portugal, where the Atlantic stretches to Africa and America. It was here that Prince Henry the Navigator was thought to have opened a school of navigation to support Portuguese sailors looking for riches overseas.
Known as the father of "The Age of Discovery" for his role in expanding the Portuguese empire, Henry's efforts kicked off the first era of globalization in the mid-15th century (though arguably there were earlier precedents for global expansionism). This period of discovery was motivated as much by colonialism—the lure of gold, a route to Asia and the slave trade—as it was by curiosity and science. Since the 15th century, there have been further periods of intense globalization—economic, political and cultural—especially in the mid-19th and early 20th centuries that have brought about a golden age of increased trade, travel and economic prosperity.
Gerry Remers, founder and retired CEO of Christie Digital, during a visit to Portugal.
Today, there seems to be a dialectic at play between positive globalist movements leading to institutions like the WTO and the UN, as well as expansions of regional blocs (EU, NAFTA), and their antithesis, i.e. de-globalization. The latter is evident in the UK’s Brexit movement as well as in the populist backlash that put Trump into the Presidency.
De-globalization arguably counters some of the excesses of corporate colonialism, but supporters of border walls, lower immigration quotas, and travel bans also quickly appropriate it. Both those on the right and left of the political spectrum seem to oppose globalization in order to conserve local cultures and protect local producers (think of Venezuela, Cuba, Poland and Hungary).
As a businessperson, I have been a strong supporter of economic globalization having benefitted from open markets for Christie Digital's projectors—as well as being frustrated by various tariffs and non-tariff barriers to free trade. As we expanded our business operations into Europe, China and the Middle East, I was able to see first-hand how our investments and hiring raised the quality of life of our local employees, and was myself enriched by encountering different cultures, languages and locales. Globalization has helped pull many people out of poverty, though admittedly there are also shortcomings and inequalities that need to be addressed.
"Our start-ups need to think more globally from inception."
Canada is a trading nation, and a great deal of our future prosperity will rest on our ability to drive innovation into our economy. As the chair of an Ontario government Expert Review Panel, over the past year I have had an opportunity to assess the Ontario Network of Entrepreneurs (the ONE). This network provides valuable support through campus-linked accelerators and regional innovation centers like MARS and Communitech to our start-ups and scale ups. We have concluded that our start-ups need to think more globally from inception. They need more, not less, connectedness to Asia, the Middle East and European markets. They also need to travel into other parts of the world to discover what other nations are doing vis-à-vis innovative technologies, to better understand customer needs and to enable the rapid diffusion of innovation back into Canada.
I would like to believe there is a positive spin to this dialectic, that corporations will see the wisdom of supporting the Paris Accord, strengthen corporate social responsibility and diversity in hiring, that borders will open, trade be freer, other cultures be recognized as equally valuable, and the earth seen as a non-renewable resource. And interestingly, it strikes me that enlightened corporate leaders are more supportive of the need to address these issues than some voters.
As an Arts grad, I believe that the curiosity and desire to trade that drove Henry and the early explorers is still at play as we continue to globalize by seeking out new ideas, new markets and prosperity. The riches we bring back are not gold and silver, but new knowledge and innovative technologies and a better appreciation for cultural diversity. I believe the rapid diffusion of these ideas, technologies, and an awareness of others can help offset concentrated global economic clusters and promote greater regional equality. And in doing so, we also counter some of the arguments for de-globalization.
