Agog at Glitzy Globalization
Globalization is good, good, good. It's opposite protectionism is bad, bad, bad. This is the mantra of Bush, as well as of practically all of the so-called "experts." This is too black-and-white for me. Some globalization actions are good and some are bad. Some protectionism actions are good and some are bad. Not "good" or "bad" for business, for growth or for a few powerful people, but "good" or "bad" for the majority of Americans.
In India, Bush said that America should not fight globalization with protectionism. There's that black-and-white stuff again. You are either with us or with the terrorists, you either fight my war or you're a traitor. Now it is, you are either for globalization or protectionism.
This is a false choice.
Have you noticed that the choice is presented entirely from the point of view of Big Business. What is meant by "globalization"? Who does most of the globalizing? Huge multinational corporations. They love globalization because it enables them to spread their tentacles of power throughout the world. Good for them. But what does this mean for ordinary Americans? We can just as easily do without the glitz and call it "trade."
What does "outsourcing" mean? Are corporations buying nails, cement or wood? We're talking about people here. People are not commodities to be bought and sold at so much a pound. There is no "outsourcing" here. The globalizer is running a "layoff of workers." And the long range purpose for the globalizer is to reduce the wages of the few workers it needs to retain.
Then there is "protectionism." Globalizers are knocking businesses who they think don't want to compete fair and square and do things to "protect" their business from foreign competition. According to them, this is terrible because it reduces "efficiency," hurts "capital flow" and is bad for "free enterprise." A better word for "protectionism" may be "saving jobs."
Instead of choosing "globalization" or "protectionism," we should choose trade policies that are good for America. By that I mean that these policies should benefit not merely big corporations, but the great majority of Americans - most of whom are workers. Here are three major policies to determine if trade is good or bad for America:
- INCREASES AMERICAN EMPLOYMENT - We should modify our laws and tax system to encourage corporations to stay and to return to the U.S., if they have left. IBM selling its Personal Systems Group to China's Lenovo for $1.75 billion is a calamity: it transfers high paying research and manufacutring jobs out of the country for many years to come
- INCREASES AMERICAN WAGES - We should prevent manufacturers from laying off workers and shipping the jobs overseas. Through our laws we should reward those who increase employment, especially high-wage employment. We should punish an outfit like Intel, when it launches the Centrino Duo mobile chip in India. Instead of tax favoritism for capital equipment we should have tax favoritism for employing in America skilled and educated workers
- SUPPORTS OUR FOREIGN POLICY - For example, don't allow an untrustworthy Dubai Ports World to operate American ports. When occupying a country like Iraq, we should encourage local businesses to take over most of the infrastructure tasks, not outfits like Halliburton
Yes, globalization is glitzy. However, we should concentrate on writing trade laws and developing a tax system that benefit most Americans, not merely a powerful few.
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