What of the internationalism of the knowledge economy? As we saw in Chapter 3, the politicians, academics and commentators who championed the idea of knowledge-based growth often stressed the importance of international openness to success in the new economy. This was partly because, on their analysis, there was no alternative: globalization (itself abetted by the computing and telecommunications revolution of the 1980s and 1990s) had made labour, capital and ideas internationally mobile, and this was a reality to which countries would simply have to adapt. But it was also because, they conjectured, policies that actively sought to deepen international openness and international ties would enable countries to steal a march on their rivals in the global knowledge economy. Removing obstacles to international investment would help to attract knowledge-intensive overseas businesses, providing domestic workers with opportunities to work for (and learn from) firms at the cutting edge of the global technological frontier. Removing obstacles to international trade would provide domestic consumers with higher-quality (and lower-cost) goods and services while simultaneously exposing domestic industries to efficiency-enhancing competition, allowing them to incorporate the latest technologies and techniques into their own output. Removing obstacles to international immigration – at least for highly skilled workers – would enable technologically advanced, high-wage countries to cream off the most innovative, educated and skilled workers from the rest of the world, further consolidating their lead in knowledge-intensive industries.

Underpinning this optimistic internationalism was a particular analysis of the competitive advantages of developed democracies in the knowledge economy era. This analysis assumed that the presence of a highly educated workforce, combined with high-quality infrastructure and robust rule-of-law institutions, would enable developed democracies to act as a magnet for knowledge work (and the businesses that create it): an advantage that their lower-wage rivals would find difficult to replicate. The same high wages that put advanced economies at a comparative disadvantage in fields such as mass manufacturing should enable these self-same countries to attract and retain highly skilled talent from overseas. And, in an era where knowledge is key, democracies that encourage the free movement of ideas within and across borders (including the products, individuals and firms who embody them) should be well placed to stay at the cutting edge of the global knowledge economy.