Those who argue that globalization is inevitable sound a little panicky.
Sunday, January 6, 2008 at 06:15PM Alan Blinder's NYT op ed today urges the next President to use the bully pulpit to "explain why globalization is both (a) inevitable and (b) more an opportunity than a threat." The inevitability argument is out there a lot. It's in the NYT editorials. It's in Tom Friedman's The Earth is Flat. We will hear it a great deal in the Presidential election campaign. This begs the question, if it's inevitable, why talk about it?
I suggest the answer is that, even assuming globalization in some form is inevitable, many of those who make this argument are acutely aware that the specific ways in which globalization proceeds are very much subject to negotiation and power politics. Having so far successfully controlled the implementation and realized the "opportunity," they very much don't want to lose or share control of that process with those who have realized the "threat."
Reader Comments (2)
What's not inevitable about something that already dominates the golbal economy? What's the alternative? Maybe the best example of an "alternative" is the protectionism of US (and European) farm policy Look where that's taking us. See Food Prices Cheap No More. More of the same will certainly be great for the globe.
Ray Tapajna Chronicles predicted the economic crisis years ago based on experts commentaries about the faillures of globalization and free trade. Free trade is not trade as historically practiced and defined. Free trade today is based on moving production from place to place for the sake of cheaper and cheaper labor. It is a no win situation. Human beings as workers are the commodities of this trade -not products.
Our economies based on making money on money instead of making things are burning out and not matter how much money President Obama pours into the economy, it is doomed to failure. Only local value added economies in balanced geopolitical regions work. Free trade and Globalization have created a new "ism" and it leads the way in substracting values and not adding them. See list of sites at http://linkbun.ch/aztb and list of articles at http://tapsearchnewsmobile.filetap.com and http://tapsmobileworld.filetap.com based on the Flat World.