More on Globalization

     As I did yesterday, I'm gonna discuss the issue of globalization a bit more now. As I said in that post

http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2011/09/globalization-again-considered.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DiaryOfARepublicanHater+%28Diary+of+a+Republican+Hater%29

     I have am currently reading "The Globalization Reader"  (Edited by Frank J & Lechner and John Boli; Blackwell Publishing) which is turning out to be a very fruitful read. This on top of another book on globalization called "Implicating Empire: Globalization and Resistance in the 21st Century Order." (Edited by Stanley Aronowitz & Heather Gautney who also both contribute as authors).
    They are both good reads and go well being read in tandem as the latter is more confrontational from an ethical perspective while the former contains more diffuse views-some pro-globalist writers with anti-globalist-and overall is more an analytical description of what globalization is.

    My overriding interest in globalization is that of course we are still in the middle of it. While both there works were about 10 years ago or more-a time still ripe with Seattle, Davos, etc-10 years later the issues are still relevant but reading it kind of takes you back to a different time, in terms of sensibility.

    The sense of globalization that a critical book like Implicating Empire criticizes is economic-the stampede of global capitalism. A few of the authors, however, suggest that they are not against globalization per se, indeed they are all for it, and are pointedly not simply demanding a return to protectionism, the pre-Nafta world, etc.

    They argue-many from the anarchist perspective of Hobshawm, for example-for True Globalization-which offers the free movement of people and ideas as opposed to global capitalism which they argue does the opposite-restricts the free movement of people and ideas though it claims the opposite.

    Yet here I can't help but remember what Zizek says about the dangerous illusion of True Democracy. I can't help but observe that most Actually Existing Socialism we have seen has allowed far less rather than more free movement.

     And there is a lot of movement of other things in globalization besides the economic variety, much of what those who oppose economic globalization would in principle approve of. Like technology, culture, language, etc.

     There are many criticisms that people have of globalization. Yet perhaps few people totally share all criticisms of it that are out there.

     For me while I understand the feeling behind the lamenting about "cultural imperialism" I got to admit that for me some homogenization of culture might be tolerable in exchange for rising growth and a rising standard of living for most people.

     The Globalization Reader noted above, is more of a mixture than Implicating Empire with some positive accounts of globalization. Indeed the first chapter of the book starts with a piece by none other than John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge (begins on pg 9) of the Economist(not gonna find any place with a more "pro-globalization" view than there) who while acknowledging some concerns about rising poverty and job insecurity in the heightened rate of market competition nevertheless assure us that whatever the "growing pains" the market should sort it out in the long run-without the "heavy hand of government"-and that in any case globalization has improved the lives of most people.

    Their claim that globalization-at the time of their writing or since-has been beneficial for most people comes a little too easy-they offer no empirical evidence. The fair question would have to be this: has the standard of living risen "for most people" even in the United States the richest and most powerful country let alone in some of the poorest places of the Third World? In the U.S. the median income and standard of living has not increased at least in the 10 years since they wrote this.

   The question really begs: while many feel that U.S. fiscal policy has not done nearly enough to deal with the current economic crisis-in terms of stimulus, indeed we have even had a government hiring freeze, and that I share incidentally-even if we do truly come out of the current crisis what will the new normal be? Between the jobs lost due to outsourcing, etc, and the jobs lost to the double edged sword of the productivity gains of the 90s what might the famous "normal rate of unemployment" or "natural rate of unemployment" look like in the future? The mutual fund manager Robert Doll-a regular guest on CNBC-wrote in a WSJ editorial back in spring that he is not one of the pessimists. He thinks we will get out of this and that the unemployment rate when we climb out of this will be 6 to 7%. If that's the new normal it is a pretty sobering normalcy.

    The question remains what are the true effects of globalization on employment in the U.S. and has it caused a structural change where in the future we will consider a 6-7% unemployment rate optimum during the healthy part of the business cycle?

     The question of Internet productivity must also be questioned. The stock answer of Alan Greenspan, quite representative, is the answer to the problem is more education and training, that Americans are not being adequately educated and lack the requisite skills. This is a half-truth which covers a larger illusion. While it's true that we have been lagging in many subjects, science and especially mathematics-the fact is we have long since gone beyond an economy where only the unskilled are out of luck. Beginning with the recession of 2001, you no longer have to be unskilled to be un- or underemployed.

    What I would be interested to see-from the Economic Policy Institute or similar group-put together a study of major corporations both in now and 10 years ago and compare how many employees they now have, both American and foreign. No doubt today there will be many more foreign workers in U.S. corporations, but I suspect the cumulative headcount is lower, ie, that the corporation of today simply requires a much lower number of employees to accomplish the same tasks as they did 10 years ago.

    If these questions are not even asked we may find ourselves in Bod Doll's best case scenario of 6 to 7% unemployment during "good times."