Anti-globalizers fail to look at the world in an aggregate way. Instead, they base their beliefs on anecdotal evidence. They find a worker in a factory who has been badly treated and blame this on globalization, and label all factories producing for Western companies as sweatshops. But they turn a blind eye to the big picture. They do not see the effect of inward investment in creating competition for labour, which pushes up wages and conditions. They do not know why the Asian Tigers are now rich. They do not see the economic growth rates of those countries – like India – who have liberalized, believing that globalization simply produces poverty. Indeed, they tend not to use any aggregate data at all. Because the big picture does not fit in their worldview, they junk it. They stick their fingers in their ears and then continue to argue against globalization with anecdotes.
The anti-globalizers are very good at confusing capitalism with absence of capitalism. They point to countries which have not liberalized and are therefore poor, and then blame this poverty on globalization. Because the facts do not fit their worldview, the facts must be wrong.
They want those in poor countries to become rich but without making the same ‘mistakes’ as Western countries. To the extent they support trade, it is a very odd form of trade. It involves people doing exactly the same type of work as their ancestors did, but with the wages being higher. They regard trade as a redistributive process rather than as a way of creating wealth. They do not see how wealth creation is anything more than a capitalist myth – after all, they say, we live in a finite world. All the evidence for the existence of wealth creation is ignored, because their worldview is trapped by the Fixed Quantity of Wealth Fallacy.
The anti-globalizers claim that the environment is getting worse. But the facts are not on their side. They look at the roads in London, see lots of cars and say that air pollution is getting worse and worse. They fail to look at the data – they do not need to because their worldview tells them that the environment is getting worse. The data however shows that the air quality in London is the cleanest since records began in 1585. On most measures, the environment is getting better.
Nevertheless, in the name of helping the environment, they promote the idea of a future Britain where we all live simpler lives, use local currencies, work locally and buy from local organic farmers. They have a romantic image of the Middle Ages economy, with people all happier, picking buttercups in the fields. They completely ignore that the economy of the Middle Ages was nasty and oppressive for the majority of those living under it, where people died at a young age. They fail to grasp that with wealth comes the ability to solve environmental problems. Instead they prefer to oppose the creation of wealth.
The anti-globalization movement is intellectually bankrupt. It is capable of shouting slogans and protesting international meetings. But in terms of providing solutions to the world’s problems, it has nothing to offer.
If it has nothing to offer, how then do you explain the popularity of anti-globalisation?
It obviously has emotional appeal.
Alex, hear-hear! This argument cannot be made too often.
Paul D, anti-globalisation has emotional appeal to those who fear change, and who fondly hope for a static world in which disturbance and change is absent. They exist on y all parts of the political spectrum, but at heart many of them are reactionaries. Much of the hostility towards markets and open trade we now read about was foreshadowed by Tory-voting romantic poets of the early 19th Century and their counterparts in Germany and France.
Here in the states, much of its populalarity comes frmo the fact that for younger people (particularly college students), it has long been seen as fashionable to be anti-globalist, anti-capitalist, etc. It was mostly a youthful rebellion sort of thing, although MTV, hippy professors, public school brainwashing, etc., did not help.
This trend is slowing, if not reversing among younger people here. The left still thinks they have a monopoly on the nation’s youth. The left flooded into the teaching professions with the idea of getting at the children; now, they are getting a backlash because now THEY are the establishment to be rebelled against.
We probably would all be better off I we did ditch the state currency. We wouldn’t be screwed by state’s inflating the money supply to “stimulate growth” (actually wealth transfer from the future and savers(investors)!)
This trend is slowing, if not reversing among younger people here. The left still thinks they have a monopoly on the nation’s youth. The left flooded into the teaching professions with the idea of getting at the children; now, they are getting a backlash because now THEY are the establishment to be rebelled against.
It’s interesting to see the ebb and flow of ‘rebellion’. Here in the US, there was a ‘red’ generation in the 1850’s and 1860’s (many of the ‘losers’ of the various 1848 uprisings having emigrated). By the 1880’s and 1890’s, industrialists were well thought of. Then came the muckrakers of the early 1900’s and the trend reversed again. The twenties were hopping with jazz and gin, while the 30’s and 40’s were dominated by collectivist tendencies (WWII rather blurring left and right types). The 50’s and early 60’s were all button down, no nonsense consumption, followed by hippie-dom and it’s after effects through the 70’s. The 80’s was back to business, and the 90’s were cominated by collectivist mentalities. Maybe the tide is turning.
But having said all that, between the ebbs and flows, things have generally gone to the left so that we now have a center-left mentality widely accepted. Most people are some form of Statist, and commonly accept that the government has a role in just about every facet of life. Cumulatively, the flows outpaced the ebbs.
“On most measures, the environment is getting better.”
I agree wholeheartedly with everything you’ve written, except this bit. You are in fact committing the same fallacy you accuse the anti-globalizers of, namely that of using anecdotal evidence while ignoring the big picture. Certainly the air in London is cleaner than in the 19th century, but there is far less room for optimism on the global scale.
Scientists generally fall towards statism because that’s where their funding comes from, but please don’t for one second think that makes them automatically vicious partisan liars. There really are serious environmental problems looming and there is no way a blanket denial of their existence will help anyone.
If we acknowledge the problems, people will take us seriously. If we continue to deny there is anything wrong, we lose credibility and give fuel to the anti-globalizers.
John writes:
“Certainly the air in London is cleaner than in the 19th century, but there is far less room for optimism on the global scale.”
I’m very far from convinced by this oft-repeated assertion. Yes, there are problems associated with the growth of industry in countries like China and India. Conversely, countries that entered the industrial revolution a couple of centuries earlier are seeing very substantial improvements. In the UK, for example, our drinking water is better (thanks to privatisation), our rivers far, far cleaner, beaches often exceed ‘standards’ (whatever those are), while the general air quality is immeasurably better than it was even 20 years ago. I would imagine much the same could be said for most of Northern Europe and possibly the USA, too.
In time, this will become true for Asia – when the population there judges that environmental quality is a luxury they can afford. Right now, clearly, they don’t, as we didn’t, until the 1970s.
Unless, of course, you are alluding to “man-made global warming” in which case we are straying into the realms of faith, where all rational discourse ends.
In a word, “Duh”…
For decades, the left has demanded that the industrial nations provide large amounts of foreign aid to the Third World by way of state to state grants, usually for some huge project that just happens to fall under the authority of the ministry led by the President-for-Life’s oldest son.
After billions and billions of dollars spent, stolen, and generally wasted, an alternate method of helping the impoverished move towards the creation of a viable middle class has recently developed. This consists of various private companies building facilities in the less developed countries, hiring the local population to work in them, and paying these employees real wages.
However, since this latter means of development is generally a form of capitalist, profit driven, business enterprise, it must be opposed at all costs by the same weary group of leftists who have been demanding the very development that the people who get the jobs have been experiencing.
This is, by the way, the same mind-set noted by some prominent leftist critics, such as Hitchens ans Totten, who comment on the strange alliance of repressive Islam with allegedly tolerant leftists who should be supporting the overthrow of regimes such as the Taliban and Iraqi Baathists, but who must oppose it because it is being done by the US and her allies.
In the Globalization debate, anti-capitalism is the only true motivation for those who now complain because businesses are doing exactly what was always supposed to happen as a result of well intentioned statist policies. The anti’s can never accept, or admit, that the state to state programs were, like UNscam, corrupt providers of Swiss bank accounts for corrupt repressors of the very people supposedly being helped.
Why, that would mean that entire sections of the CW by which the world has been run for centuries might have to be reconsidered. And, when you are committed to progressively bringing the world back to the middle ages, it simply doesn’t do to question too deeply.
Wait up! Can somebody tell me if anti-capitalist=socialist?
TWG
many on the right are corporatist anti-capitalists
an essay(Link) on spiked-online published recently makes a very similar argument. jonathan peirce is totally right that the anti globalisation movement is reactionary. in the past left wing thought had the intention of raising the level of production to make it more efficient, and to redistribute the proceeds more fairly. whether this is a good or bad thing depends on your perspective. now however i think we can all agree that the (post?)modern left’s obsession with limiting basically anything that would make peoples lives better is a complete catastrophe, especially seeing the influence that some of their ideas are having on mainstream politicians.
It’s funny, even Joseph Stiglitz, author of Globalisation and its Discontents, acknowledges that globalisation is a rising tide that’s been lifting all boats. He just calls for reform of the institutions, and not an end to globalisation. How to reform the institutions is up for debate, though.
And it is a tide that lifts all boats. The more our global culture comes together economically (as genericising and depressing as it can be) the less likely we are to fight among ourselves. [In we, I meant Humanity, capital H].
I’ll get me coat…
On the subject of the environment in the UK getting better, could the reason there is less industrial pollution in the environment be anything to do with the reduction in industry? Before anyone says ‘actually, zmollusc, you show your imbicility once again. Industrial growth in the UK has been at xyz% p.a. for the last century’, I am only going by what I see around me, all the mills, mines and engineering gone, lots of offices, houses and supermarkets.
zmollusc: not to mention that our environmental laws and regulations are stronger than they have ever been. It seems obvious to me that stricter regulation, whatever impact it may have on industry and competetiveness, has a positive environmental impact.
Nothing like being a lone voice, but, here goes…
Globalization is a Good Thing ™ if and when done correctly, but as it stands, it is the corporate version of the “.gov foreign-aid-down-the-3rd-world rathole.”
At the end of the day, the US (my parochial perspective) requires a middle class to survive in its present political form. Requiring the middle class in the US to compete with 3rd world manufacturers is a losing proposition. Even if the income differential is removed from the equation, the vast overhead of operating in North America creates a disparity that over time will grow more pronounced.
I have no trouble requiring American workers to compete with Canadian, British, or even French workers. However, to ask them compete with Chinese workers on a cost basis is to invite the destruction of the middle class in the US.
To put this alcohol addled post in another way, how does free trade school rationlize away the erosion of the American manufacturing base? When we made the transition from an agricultural economy to a manufacturing one, we didn’t stop growing food. We are starting to not manufacture, and the simple fact is that with the loss of those jobs, we are consigning a large segment of our population to WalMart level incomes.
This has significant i.e. world changing geopolitical ramifications.
If straight competition with a billion chinese means the destruction of the American middle class, then so be it. It means we didn’t build it on solid ground…
Comparative Advantage.
Capitalism is the only thing that works, and in a Capitalist system, you cannot survive forever selling a product that no one wants because it costs too much compared to a competitor.
When I was a kid, I learned that America was great because of it’s industry, which was great because Americans long ago adopted freedom and achievement of happyness on earth as a noble goal. If we cannot compete, then we do not deserve to! It is only a matter of time till things are evened out and the longer you continue to live with you’re head in the sand, the harder the fall will be.
tanstafl@gmail.com
Justin Lawlor writes:
Piffle, and Tony is needlessly doom mongering as well. Here is the UK we have no ‘manufacturing industry’ to speak of and we’re as rich as Croesus. The service sector can move in to soak up the displaced workforce and we can all get by perfectly well cutting each other’s hair and feng shuiing each others houses and paying ourselves a kings ransom for doing it. The UK economy can employ the entire Chinese labour force twenty times over without any ill effects.
Capitalism works.
Paul I love the “feng shuiing” part!
Justin,
Now, China and India will supply the manufacturing sector of the global economy, because it’s cheap as hell to build over there (despite that, manufacturing wages over there are better than anything else they’ve had).
Given time, though, those working in those factories are going to find they have more money to spend than they used to. They will spend it on many things: education for their kids, fast-food, nicer houses, SUVs, etc. . . Soon enough their kids are going to be too smart (i.e. have a high labor value) to work in those factories, and find (or create) something else to do. Those Chinese will find someone else to do the manufacturing for them (in fact, it has already started).
At that point, when the Chinese/Indians have so much wealth, disposiable income, and disposable time, they can worry about the stupid bullshit that so absorbs Westerners: the usual crisis du jour, and Lindsey Lohan’s breasts.
Paul Coulam writes:
“The UK economy can employ the entire Chinese labour force twenty times over without any ill effects.”
But it has to have the means to pay them.
Being old enough to remember having had the phrase ‘balance of payments crisis’ drummed into me with every news broadcast, I’ve not forgotten what it is like to live in a country that can’t pay its way.
The flaw in your argument is that you can’t export services beyond a point. Yes, there are opportunities in banking, insurance, tourism, entertainment and other ‘soft’ industries, but the books still have to balance sooner or later and it has yet to be proved that they will.
You’re right to say that capitalism works and it is the only thing we know of that really does. But being on the sharp end of its mechanism isn’t necessarily enjoyable and it would be wise for us the UK not to get too cocky about our prospects and forget that we have to pay our way.
Look it’s simply. Foreign competion makes US richer not poorer. People are missing several parts of the equation, namely, when goods get cheaper, it means there is money left over for other goods and exported money can only be used in the country it was sent from!
Scottish Layland offers to sell a car for 1000 fiats(the currency)
Long-Wang corp offer to sell a car for 900 fiats
Consumer has 1000 fiats but buys the 900 fiats car.
Consumer has the benefit of a car PLUS 100 spare fiats.
Long-Wang corp has 900 fiats that can only be spent/invested back in consumers country…
we can all get by perfectly well cutting each other’s hair and feng shuiing each others houses
Hi Paul
Don’t be too sure about the Feng Shui. I’ve recently been hired to look after the accounts of a small local organisation until they decide on their long-term finance staff requirements. I had a one-day handover from the previous incumbent. He spent almost the entire day discussing the Feng Shui of his office plants, of his screensaver and of his (non-existent) filing system. When I got to work on my own the next day I discovered hundreds and hundreds of accounting errors and quickly noted that over £130,000 was lying in a current account and not earning interest. Payments had not been made to the pension fund for five months.
You may not be too surprised to learn that this is a taxpayer funded organisation and, yes, they do provide “Fair Trade” coffee!
(PS The pension fund (also in the public sector) was completely unaware of not having been paid and denied this vehemently until they rather sheepishly admitted that they had been looking at a spreadsheet for 2003)
The life of a corporate shill must by a well paid one and you ought to know.
As to the questions concerning environmental issues: 1) Some of the major environmental issues being touted are based in reactionary science. Singular observations are not conclusive, yet many “scientists” and other false experts are yelling loudly about issues citing anecdotal evidence. This is particularly effective when said evidence is emotionally inciteful, such as pictures of little baby seals. I do not say that all scientists are liars, but I will say that historically most science has been proven erroneous by subsequent scientists and scientific discoveries.
2) While there are indeed some notable issues in the environment that should be addressed, I find it interesting that we actually, because of capitalism, have reached a point of success and freedom to actually care about single species on the other half of the globe. We care, we have the technology to actually be aware of the issue, and we can address it. All of this is due to the success and technology that capitalism has brought us.
3) Government regulation only artificially forces what the market would have forced more efficiently. Typically the market would do it more effectively, with more success, and with wider support, and with marked improvement on society as opposed to dragging society down with costs. People do not make decisions based soley on price, quality, and convenience in a free market. People make decisions based on personal preferences and beleifs as well. There are enough people who care about the quality of life around them, as well as nature and the Earth itself, to influence the path of technology toward more environmentally safe paths. Furthermore, successful businesses seek efficiency. The least waste means the best means, as well as the least waste products, all of which leads to a more successful venture. You will notice that the cleanest factories in these developing nations are the factories employing modern technology. Contrary to popular beleif, it is NOT more profitable to be wasteful and damaging to the environment. Even in places without environmental laws, those who import modern technology and processes choose to stick with those processes, rather than resort back to the more polluting methods of the third world country in which they are investing.
On the whole I could not agree more with Alex’s article, it is quite well presented.
The flaw in your argument is that you can’t export services beyond a point
This is simply not true. More services industries are popping up than can be recorded acurately, especially because they are becoming more personal and higher quality as our wealth in the wester world increases.
From iterior decorating (“feng shuiing”), to massage, to personal trainers, to wedding planners, to space tourism, to live porn chats, to things you are not creative enough to imagine.
The assertion of a “limit”, is part of the fallacy mentioned in the post.
The poor will get richer as long as they want to work. Americans will need to retrain themselves, which is good. If you think foreign competition is significant, just wait until robots are good enough to do most physical jobs, so ALL human labor will be in services.
I can’t wait for this, actually… 🙂
Ever read Asimov? Their are some Robot books that describe worlds than have 10 to 1, or even 100 to 1 human to robot ratio’s… Essentially, everyone on the planet gets to be king… Sounds like paradise to me!
tanstafl@gmail.com
Ivan Kirigin writes:
“From iterior decorating (“feng shuiing”), to massage, to personal trainers, to wedding planners, to space tourism, to live porn chats, to things you are not creative enough to imagine.”
Possibly. But I do understand that you in the USA, and we in the UK, will need to export those services to those who manufacture what we consume.
I await your proposal for exporting wedding planning services, interior decoration and so on with interest – particularly the bit where you explain why you can do it cheaper or better than the Chinese.
Very nice piece.
That great socialist Buckminster Fuller had a better explanation (because it is simpler)
Wealth has two parts: the physical and the metaphysical.
It is only the physical which cannot be created or destroyed. (even there the inventory of available metals is increasing despite losses in the process).
Obviously the metaphysical is relatively unlimited.
For quite some time to come we can get smarter.
Well Bucky was born back in the day when socialism was the globalists enterprise. Bucky was smart enough to see that socialism could only come about without war if there was enough to go around. The only way to accomplish that was to do more with less.
i.e. better ideas re: technology.
>I await your proposal for exporting wedding planning services, interior decoration and so on with interest – particularly the bit where you explain why you can do it cheaper or better than the Chinese.
A conversation in 2020 in china:
You can’t be serious no self-respecting women will have a wedding without a dress personally designed for her in Paris, etc… , and a wedding planner from New York that’s were all the latest and greatest fashions are. Your wedding will otherwise have a months old fashion at least!
How could you even suggest otherwise to your bride, no wonder she doesn’t want to talk.
With the male female ratio the way it is you are lucky if she doesn’t dump you.
Kamil
The life of a corporate shill must by a well paid one and you ought to know.
Somebody owes me back wages!
“The data however shows that the air quality in London is the cleanest since records began in 1585.”
does anyone know where I can get this data??? Would help me a lot in winning an argument.
Thxs
Obviously I’m slow, since the other posts were in October, but that’s normal.
Anyway, I do agree with anti-globalizers in one way:
All the globablization efforts on a UN, WTO, IMF level are being brought about by non-democratic institutions and that’s not right, whether if I agree or disagree with their goals.
(Besides, bureaucracies such as those listed never bring about good – only more of their kind.)
I’m not sure that anti-globalizers really care about democracy, despite their words, but they do have a point.