Globalization is not the problem
I made a comment on another social media referencing Dan Crenshaw who had tweeted that Democrats want a class war. I told him there already was class warfare and the wealthy were winning.
A different commentor said: No, they are losing to globalization. You’re busy swatting at flies while ignoring the giant turd in the room.
Sorry but I disagree.
Both Trump and many of the progressive movement (of which I consider myself a part) have latched onto this globalization issue as THE problem. But that isn’t the problem. Adam Smith had it exactly right when he discussed comparative advantage
“Comparative advantage is an economy’s ability to produce a particular good or service at a lower opportunity cost than its trading partners. The theory of comparative advantage introduces opportunity cost as a factor for analysis in choosing between different options for production.” [1]
In 1997, I went to a technology conference to hear George Gilder speak. He was a futuristic type of thinker and most famous for his book Wealth adn Poverty. [2] Three of his comments have stayed with me all this time but the one that is most pertinent to this discussion is when he said, in front of CEOs and Plant Managers “don’t solve problems.” Of course, they exhibited a collective ‘UH?” “don’t solve problems” he said. “Change the landscape of the issue and the problems go away.”
Exactly. We can’t solve worker displacement and issues created by globalization by reverting to mercantilism. Change the landscape of the issue.
Globalization is a fact it’s not going to go away and it’s not going to be reversed.
Americans don’t want to pay $300 for a DVD player when they can pay $50 for it because it’s made in China. They don’t want to pay $10 for a t-shirt when they can pay $3 for a t-shirt made in the Dominican Republic.
Let me provide an example with regards to the t-shirts. In the 1970s, I believe, a lot of textile businesses off-shored from the Carolinas to places like the Dominican Republic. Millions of Americans could now get cheaper clothing and bed linens etc. That also raised the standard of living of those workers in the third world countries. But it came at the expense of a couple thousand US textile workers. Do we reverse that and onshore those jobs for 2000 people so that we double or triple the cost of the product we buy? NO.
What is wrong with the American system is not the offshoring- it’s the onshore lack of SUPPORT for the workers displaced. This lack of support is directly rooted in the capitalist free market system and class warfare! Those at the top that benefit from this system don’t want to change it to support workers because they benefit from the stock market that rides on the profits of cheaper labor, they benefit because they don’t have to pay higher taxes for a better social safety network. And they benefit from displaced American workers having to suck it up and take cheaper paying jobs just to get by as the wealth gap expands larger.
Except for key industries which may be needed for national security, it isn’t offshoring and globalization that is the problem, it’s the system of poor social support for American workers. We need to implement a federal jobs guarantee, examine the applicability of universal basic income, expand affordable child care options, support our public education system with at least a K-14 (two years of free community college or trade school) and otherwise build a better social safety net.
Change the landscape of the issue and the problem goes away.
