Is it worth it?
Is the transition period of political turmoil that globalization brings worth it? While there are many economic factors that go into globalization, one consistent with both the United States and Mexico is that as free trade increases, the middle is falling out of the
US and the Mexican economy. The GDP is rising, unemployment may even remain small, but the gap between the rich and the small is also steadily increasing. In this respect, globalization is not an economic question, it is a moral quandary. As we have already determined, in a free trade scenario we place one group above another, we destroy the middle class and put faith in the fact that we will simply create a new one; by doing so we destroy the immediate livelihood of an entire group of people. For me, it was easier to see this destruction as a wrong when looking at Mexican farming than it is when looking at it within my own culture.
Weather we see this change as good or bad it is an undeniable moral quandary. I think that this is what creates the most political problems. Economic theory is still just economic theory, and it is hard to hold clout when faced with real flesh and blood people. We had a discussion in class about why non free traders do better in American politics. Granted, I’m the type of person that takes three days to decide weather or not I want to switch my regular sandwich from a tuna fish or PB and J, but if I were to chose from a higher GDP and job security, I would chose job security hands down. If I had kids to feed, I would fight tooth and nail for job security over a higher GDP. I’m going to throw a crazy idea out. Maybe in addition to being hopelessly corrupt (as politicians doubtlessly are) they are also pulled by an undeniable sense of injustice. And for many non-economists this doubtlessly wins out over faith in economic theory. So no, I don’t think that the turmoil created from a national economy to a global economy is worth it, I just think that their aren’t any alternatives that don’t just lead down a harder road, or act as band aids (as tariffs would)
Perhaps uniform environmental law is something that would be a plus for the concept of ‘fair trade’ and still wouldn’t hurt the economy (especially not when compared to the overall cost of environmental degradation.) The theory used to support forgoing these regulations suggest that there is a tipping point for which these countries will gain enough economic clout that they will begin to establish their own economics laws. Studies of Mexico and NAFTA show that this is either not the case, the ‘tipping point’ occurs much later than we expected it would. Unfortunately, uniform law would require massive donations from developed to developing countries to help them improve their infrastructure. It does seem like the United States and Europe should be able to reach an agreement.
Fair trade products also seem like a good idea, but currently account for only .01% of all the products made in the world. People simply can’t be convinced to spend more money for the good of humanity, and each consumer in a consumer group makes little impact, and therefore has little motivation to continue making contributions
