Golden Arches

«Perhaps the most hubristic passage in Thomas Friedman's The Lexus ant the Olive Tree is his assertion that globalization 'increases the incentives for not making war and increases the costs of going to war in more ways than in the previous era in modern history'. To reinforce his point, Friedman propounds ´The Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention', according to which no two countries, both of which have at least one McDonald's franchise, have gone to war. Friedman's book was published on 17 May 1999, less than two months after the United States had gone to war with the Republic of Yugoslavia - apparently oblivious to the well-advertised presence of McDonald's in Belgrade.»

The cash nexus, Niall Ferguson