Emphasizing self-sufficiency with respect to interdependence

Many of us fall into the trap of confounding this idea of the Buddhist principle of interdependence -- the inextricable web in which nothing can claim a separate or static existence -- with the ideals of the "global village" and the border-less world of free trade. The buzzwords of "harmonization", "integration", "union", etc. should not confuse us into believing that globalization is making us more interdependent with one another or with the natural world. It is instead merely furthering our dependence on large-scale economic structures and technologies, and on a shrinking number of huge multinational corporations.