You would be hard pressed to think of something produced outside of the global economy. Consider something as simple as a pencil, as described in this short video adapted from the 1958 essay by Leonard E. Read entitled I, Pencil. Even something as seemingly humble and mundane as a pencil is the result of a global economy so vast it would be hard to quantify.

Nothing is exempt from the global economy. Chances are what you ate for breakfast this morning was at least in part grown abroad, transported in vehicles made from foreign steel, perhaps powered by foreign oil, and sold in a store with global interests. Extrapolate this over a lifetime and it’s easy to see how even even you are a product of a global economy.