I am writing these words on a computer that was made in China for an American company. Later, I will play a game of football wearing a blue shirt made in Vietnam for a famous club from Liverpool, which is sponsored by a firm based in Curacao and is in a league with players from 62 nations and investors from Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the United States. This evening, I will drive in my German-made car to watch an Indian film in a cinema owned by a Dubai investment company, which also operates chains of British shops selling electrical goods and wine along with seafood restaurants in the US, hotels in Japan and a Caribbean tourist resort.

My day demonstrates how money, trade and societies are so entwined. This is the legacy of decades of globalisation, the most successful economic creed in history that swept the world and transformed lives. It is based on free trade and unfettered borders for goods, services and sometimes people. It led to astonishing advances for humanity, symbolised by the power of my laptop computer. And it has been highly progressive: over the three decades leading up to the 2020 pandemic, we saw a doubling of per capita income, average life expectancy rise by a decade, child mortality fall to record lows and at least one billion people lifted out of poverty.

When I was born six decades ago, more than half my fellow human beings on the planet lived in extreme poverty; today, barely one in 12 struggle in such dire straits. Yet this concept of benign co-existence is being shredded by the country that promoted it so hard, especially after it helped to defeat its foes in the Cold War – a moment in history that seemed to hold such hope as it accelerated globalisation. The tide turned in favour of free markets, leading to a new consensus championed by

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