Comments on: Michael Jennings on how actual globalisation really works (and two exceptions to the rule)

By: Samizdata

Samizdata — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 20:58:33 +0000

[...] essay from which these paragraphs are taken reminded me of the recent talk that Samizdata commenter Michael Jennings gave in a recent talk to a circle at the apartment of Brian Micklethwait. Meanwhile, some time ago [...]

By: Michael Jennings on how actual globalisation really works (and two exceptions to the rule) | Algeria Auction

Sat, 02 Mar 2013 11:51:10 +0000

[...] It’s tempting for a blogger to assume that because he has said all his stuff several times over, in about a hundred blog postings, that everyone who cares about it now gets it. But a talk that pulls a lot of it together actually tells even his most regular readers a great deal that they probably didn’t previously…Read More [...]

By: Stonyground

Stonyground — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 19:34:08 +0000

“…exceptions which, with their oddity and rarity, prove the rule, as the rather odd saying goes.”

The saying is only odd if you interpret the word ‘prove’ as its most common modern meaning, as in proving that something is true. In the context of this saying, the meaning of the word ‘prove’ is to put to the test. The exception that puts the rule to the test.

By: Paul Marks

Paul Marks — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 15:39:21 +0000

The Sushi bar in Jerusalem airport seemed to being doing well.

There may be something to this globalisation thing…..

By: Michael Jennings

Michael Jennings — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 06:25:19 +0000

In the UK, cheapest Nexus 4 (from Google Play, 8Gb, unlocked and SIM free) = £239 + £10 shipping)

Cheapest iPhone 5 (from Apple Store, 16gb, unlocked and SIM free) = £529 with free shipping.

By: Bob, Henchman at Large

Bob, Henchman at Large — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 04:43:58 +0000

Sausage can taste the same in multiple countries and cultural regions if it is made of Soylent Green.

By: Eric

Eric — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 04:09:52 +0000

Hamburgers are beef patties.

Used to be, anyway.

By: Bruce Hoult

Bruce Hoult — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 03:32:05 +0000

While I agree with the thrust of what you say, I do wonder how you arrive at a Nexus 4 being half the price of an iPhone.

Here in NZ they appear to generally go for $699 with 16 GB: http://pricespy.co.nz/product.php?p=1484309

An iPhone 4 (what I still use myself) with 8 GB is available for $599, an iPhone 4s with 16 GB for $899, or the latest brand spanking iPhone 5 with 16 GB for $1049.

Even if you want the very latest iPhone you’re only talking 50% more, not double, and older models are available for prices quite comparable to the Nexus.

All prices include 15% GST and are for contract-free unlocked phones.

By: veryretired

veryretired — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 03:18:54 +0000

In a great many ways, the rest of the world that had been trying to join the industrial revolution is recapitulating the trials and turmoil of the western world, which trod that path in the 19th and 20th centuries. In some areas, they are able to profit from our experiences, and the ready markets for their goods gives them a leg up that the earlier pioneers didn’t have.

It is not surprising, therefore, that many of the tired criticisms of, and ideological arguments against, industrial development are also being recycled from those previous centuries by the same collectivist cultists, now joined by various “new” groups disguised as environmental activists and child protection types.

I would be more impressed with their hand-wringing and wailing about the evils of development if they had ever exerted anywhere near the same energy lamenting the back-breaking work and childhood deprivation of subsistence farming and low tech manufacture.

It is long past time to strip away the false veil of moral superiority these toadies wear, and expose them for the ideological fanatics they truly are, and always have been.

If they actually represented any concern for the welfare of ordinary working people, the places where their social-engineering regimes held power would not consist of gruesomely polluted land, air, and water, and earth soaked with more blood than any evil industrial abattoir.

In the future, the middle and commercial classes these developments are creating will force their societies to undergo enormous, fundamental reforms. The autocrats in various countries trying to control the development, while maintaining their corrupt systems and their positions in them, will be unpleasantly surprised to find that those shopkeepers and factory workers are the very revolutionary force their twisted ideology always claimed they were, but not in the way they imagined.

The power of the powerless is the only true, and irresistible, power in the world.

By: Michael Jennings (London)

Michael Jennings (London) — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 01:33:03 +0000

McDonald’s have a core menu consisting of a small number of items that they try to make uniform throughout the world: cheeseburgers, Big Macs, Fries, a couple of the dessert items like hot apple pies. There are a few other things that exist in one way or another in most markets but vary a bit – there will always be at least one chicken burger of some kind, and then there is the Quarter Pounder / McRoyale, which has the same sized beef patty everywhere but varies quite a bit in terms of the other things in the bun with it. Often when they enter a new market, they will sell little more than this core menu initially, but they will later diversify the menu to cater to local tastes, to the extent that after they have been in a market for a while, 80% of the menu might consist of localised items. If you are a foreign visitor who walks in and orders a Big Mac with a Coke and Fries, McDonald’s will feel exactly the same everywhere, even though most people in different places may be eating quite different things. In particular, the balance of beef and chicken items on the menu can vary a lot, and can go far from American norms in places where poultry is generally eaten in preference to red meat. I have seen places where McDonald’s menu only has a couple of beef burgers but has four or five different chicken burgers to choose from.

The more interesting cases (which I talked about) where situations where local dietary rules and tastes prohibit those core menu items. No cheese on the Big Macs in Israel. And no beef nor pork in India. In India they do a good version of the Big Mac with chicken, and in some places I believe they do or did a Big Mac with lamb, but I have not personally seen it. Certainly the prohibition on pork does affect the menu in Islamic places and in Israel, but this is somehow easier to replace with substitutes than is the case when you cannot use beef. Somehow the sausage in the Sausage McMuffins manages to taste the same in Europe, the Middle East, and in India, even though the meat used must be different in all these places.

By: Charlie

Charlie — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 00:50:36 +0000

A quibble: Hamburgers are beef patties. But what you say is true; McDonald’s and other chains have quite varied menus in different countries and sometimes different locales within a country.
The unfortunate part of globalization would appear to me to be a one size fits all approach to the legal system. That, and to where do you flee when the politics go sideways, as they inevitably will.

By: Michael Jennings (London)

Michael Jennings (London) — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 00:13:35 +0000

Сушия on the other hand is Ukrainian. It's similar to YO! Sushi in that it sells Sushi, most of its outlets are in the capital city Kiev in similar sorts of places to where you might find a YO! Sushi in London, and the food is good quality and good value. But the Ukrainian take on sushi is different to the British take in various subtle ways. If you are looking for a genuinely global and the same everywhere take on Japanese food, one could try Nobu. This is high end - investment banker / Davos attendee / Russian oligarch / global elite food. It has many of the same customers in its restaurants worldwide, possibly. However global it might be, though, it's fairly hard to describe a chain consisting of 26 restaurants in only 20 cities as ubiquitous. I suspect it feels ubiquitous to its target market, though. That's possibly a common fallacy of people who think that the world is suddenly the same wherever they go, though. It's far more about them than it is the world.