Monday, January 6, 2014

Noah Smith — The Dark Side of Globalization: Why Seattle's 1999 Protesters Were Right

The WTO demonstrators were the "Occupy" movement of the late-20th century—mocked, maligned, and mostly right.
1. loss of labor bargaining power with importation of embedded labor (job loss and wage competition).

2.  importation of unsafe product

3. exportation of negative externalities and reduction of domestic environmental standards to compete

4. negative global effects (climate change)

Noah closes with "U.S. inequality is up since Seattle, but global inequality has declined. The industrialization of China and (to a lesser degree) India has been the biggest and most effective anti-poverty program the world has ever seen. Capitalism has its flaws, but it works." Standard neoliberal bullshit about accepting the consequences of negative externalities as being "worth it" based on quantitative measurement. Stop drinking the Kool-Aid, Noah.

The Atlantic
The Dark Side of Globalization: Why Seattle's 1999 Protesters Were Right
Noah Smith | Assistant Professor of Finance, Stony Brook University

Also recalls Ross Perot's "giant sucking sound" of US jobs leaving when NAFTA was being debated.


1 comment:

Ryan Harris said...
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