The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization

by Peter Zeihan

Transcontinental trade via routes like the Silk Roads by necessity generated 10,000 percent markups as a matter of course. That kept trade goods firmly in the categories of lightweight, low bulk, and nonperishable. Deepwater navigation sailed around the entire problem. The new ships could not just sail out of sight of land for months at a time, reducing exposure to threats; their cavernous holds limited their need to stop for supplies. Their fearsome arsenals meant that when they did need to stop, the locals tended to not wander by and see what they could steal. The lack of middlemen reduced the cost of luxury goods by an excess of 90 percent—and that was before the powers backing the new deepwater traders started dispatching troops to directly take over the sources of the spices and silks and porcelain that the world found so valuable.