American Compass

The Benefits of Globalization Never Materialized While The Disadvantages Did

The problem is not the economist’s oft-repeated disclaimer that trade creates both winners and losers. The problem is that the promised benefits never materialized, while costs dismissed as implausible have proved all too real. Of course, not every problem in the American economy has a connection to globalization, and in few cases is globalization solely to blame. But the era of globalization has coincided closely enough with the onset of precisely those problems that a clear-eyed analyst might have predicted and delivered outcomes sufficiently contrary to the ones its ideologues envisioned, that any jury would return a verdict of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.