Globalization comes earlier and smoother?

And especially that it's a bonanza for the Third World, for the U.S. and USSR compete economically.

Bonus points if the middle class in the United States continues to expand into the '70s and '80s.
 
Well avoid the 1914-18 war and you are well underway. Siberian butter is being shipped to London, Russia is industrialising fast - as is Japan. China is starting to industrialise/modernise as is Turkey. Consequently avoid the rise of Communism and Marxist (control of means of production) socialism. Avoid the Licence Raj and Partition in India and warlord era and Sino-Japanese war in China. No Smoot-Hawley tariff. Shorter Great Depression with Russia and China industrialising. No Latin American military juntas with delusions of autarky. Slower and more hegemonic (by former colonial master I mean) end to colonialism so fewer post colonial power struggles leading to instability
 
Well avoid the 1914-18 war and you are well underway. Siberian butter is being shipped to London, Russia is industrialising fast - as is Japan. China is starting to industrialise/modernise as is Turkey. Consequently avoid the rise of Communism and Marxist (control of means of production) socialism. . .
1) Okay, I'll go with this as possibility #1. Avoiding WWI is a heck of a good start. If we also avoid Marxist style socialism, the world's less colorful. Maybe a country or two evolves who tries to tilt the laws 60-40 in favor of unions.

2) A second possibility is that WWI ends slightly earlier than OTL. Russia under the Bolsheviks is not perceiving as bailing and suing for a separate peace. This is a very important hinge point which I think is underappreciated. Lenin keeps competent lines of succession even while he's a relatively young guy in his fifties. A nut like Stalin gets nowhere near the levers of power. Consequently, the whole trajectory of the Soviet Union is much more reasonable, constructive and middle-of-the-road. And rather gives the West a run for its money. ;)
 
Editorial --> http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebat...ted-states-felt-its-pain?nytmobile=0?referer=

2013

" . . As heavily subsidized U.S. corn and other staples poured into Mexico, producer prices dropped and small farmers found themselves unable to make a living. Some two million have been forced to leave their farms since Nafta. . "
Well, if Mexican farmers are losing, who's winning? Probably large agribusiness.

Now, I do want to confirm this with more than just one editorial. But damn, we need to bend the path on trade. I've long thought this. Bending the path based on facts, and perhaps most importantly, in a series of medium steps where we can observe feedback as we go.

And in all honesty, the shift away from family farms and to agribusiness is most probably a major world trend (but not the only trend) with or without NAFTA.
 
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And in all honesty, the shift away from family farms and to agribusiness is most probably a major world trend (but not the only trend) with or without NAFTA.
Lenin keeps competent lines of succession even while he's a relatively young guy in his fifties. A nut like Stalin gets nowhere near the levers of power. Consequently, the whole trajectory of the Soviet Union is much more reasonable, constructive and middle-of-the-road. And rather gives the West a run for its money.
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I think you might be better avoiding the Bolsheviks taking power at all. They were a bad role model which led virtually all socialists (even the much more moderate) to adopt state capitalism as the best or only model for building socialism and drowned out a lot of more interesting if less dramatic (and potentially viable) ideas around worker representation on company boards, co-operatives and syndicalism. Also, it wasn't the Great War that really screwed the Russian industrial economy which was based around St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev and Tsaritsyn -none of which were in the firing line. It was the civil war and War Communism (Lenin might have finally realised it wasn't working but not until he had thoroughly wrecked the industrial economy) in 1917-21 that really set back Russian industrialisation. The NEP allowed for some recovery but USSR economy seems to have only recovered to about 1914 levels by 1929/30 at which point Stalin starts to screw things up again! Kerensky surviving might be a better bet or Lenin perishing back in the 1910s and a totally different Bolshevik leadership in 1917.

On agriculture, OTL has been a very favourable one, practically a wank, for British, American and (post 1945) West European farming. Lenin, Hitler and Stalin between them ensured through war and inefficient collective farming that Russian Empire/USSR (1917-1989) and Eastern Europe (1939-1989) were not viable economic competitors on the world markets and indeed during the Cold War were export markets for Western farming. And that despite Hungary, Slovakia and Ukraine being the breadbasket of Europe! Not to mention Juan Peron and succeeding military juntas crippling Argentina as a global player and various other Latin American countries never getting off the ground due to similar bemedalled generals in sunglasses with weird ideas about autarky inherited from Mussolini or else close ties to the CIA and United Fruit. Butterfly all that away and family farming will be in steady decline from the 1940s and 1950s in Britain and America, Canada and North Germany. Slightly slower rates of decline in the main wine producing and fruit growing areas (where smaller units are more viable and there will be a much bigger Northern Hemisphere and urban market). So France and South Germany and Romania, Albania and Bulgaria less hard hit and probably still quite agrarian. Danes and Dutch will probably defy gravity by extremely good organisation and marketing (just like OTL). Yugoslav states/former Austria Hungary probably in this category too but political instability might be a factor.
 
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