Reading recent debates about economic inequality in the United States, one senses the tide of opinion amongst both academic economists and the 'commentariat' has shifted. Concern is mounting, as are calls for action - even from traditionally orthodox sources. A similar trends now seems to be happening with the globalisation debate - and the two are not unrelated. Let's look at a few recent examples.
First, academic economists are becoming more concerned - and I don't just mean Paul Krugman or Joe Stiglitz. Former Council of Economic Advisers Matthew Slaughter and co-author Kenneth F. Scheve call for A New Deal for Globalization in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs magazine. Here's the abstract:
Globalization has brought huge overall benefits, but earnings for most U.S. workers -- even those with college degrees -- have been falling recently; inequality is greater now than at any other time in the last 70 years. Whatever the cause, the result has been a surge in protectionism. To save globalization, policymakers must spread its gains more widely. The best way to do that is by redistributing income.
The authors make explicit the link to living standards:
U.S. policy is becoming more protectionist because the American public is becoming more protectionist, and this shift in attitudes is a result of stagnant or falling incomes. Public support for engagement with the world economy is strongly linked to labor-market performance, and for most workers labor-market performance has been poor.
Second, respected global newspapers which in the past have stoutly defended the benefits of free trade and globalisation are now acknowledging the need to address the downsides as well. A recent Wall Street Journal piece by David Wessell, The Case for Taxing Globalization's Big Winners, which cited the Slaughter and Scheve paper, concludes:
What to do? To preserve political support for the globalization dividend, spread the benefits more broadly by taxing winners more and losers less. ...Counting on the inevitability of globalization is imprudent; politics and policy can interfere. Expecting market forces to reverse the recent trend toward ever-bigger winnings for those at the top is unwise; the forces are too strong.
Taxing winners isn't without risk; as Mr. Summers says, globalization makes it easier for them to "pick up their marbles and go somewhere else." But using the tax code to slice the apple more evenly is far more palatable than trying to hold back globalization with policies that risk shrinking the economic apple.
Likewise, the Financial Times recently editorialised that Globalisation needs more than PR to be sold to its losers:
Globalisation has many virtues. Chief among them, it has contributed to an unprecedented accumulation of human wealth over the past decades and has helped lift a record number of poor out of poverty.
Yet globalisation has also created losers, particularly among the middle and lower classes in rich countries. Governments need to do more to help the groups most hurt. ...Governments need to be more active in helping the losers in rich countries. Instead of trying to safeguard industries in vulnerable sectors, governments need to be more inclusive and protect citizens.
...Many people do not mind that Bill Gates or Warren Buffett are worth billions. Both earned their wealth under the set of rules that apply to most others in rich countries. But the worry is that the global market system works to the disadvantage of people in already low-paid, low-skilled jobs in developed economies.
So government policies should focus on enabling the individual to feel as confident as possible within the global system. This could be through funding additional training or other means to help those who have lost their jobs to re-enter the market quickly. It might also imply a more progressive tax system, partial wage insurance, and untying social benefits such as basic healthcare from jobs to avoid undue fears of unemployment.
Third, even international orthodox defenders-of-the-faith such as the OECD and World Trade Organisation are starting to voice doubts. WTO head Pascal Lamy, for example, has been muttering about the dark side of globalisation. According to Reuters, last week he said in Beijing:
The speed of globalisation is affecting our social fabric in a much harsher way than in previous stages of globalisation. If globalisation has benefited some individuals, it has also weakened the position of many others, in particular the weakest and poorest among us, whether in developed or developing countries.
Hence, one of the most important challenges of our generation is to ensure that the benefits of globalisation are more fairly and widely shared, and in particular that they reach more people in developing countries.
The OECD's Employment Outlook 2007, likewise, included a chapter called 'OECD workers in the global economy: increasingly vulnerable?'. You have to pay for the report, but the 4 page editorial, Addressing the globalisation paradox (PDF), provides a good summary. The accompanying press release stated:
Rather than seeing globalisation as a threat, OECD governments should focus on improving labour regulations and social protection systems to help people adapt to changing job markets. That is the message from the 2007 edition of the OECD’s annual Employment Outlook. It reviews the possibility that offshoring may have reduced the bargaining power of workers, especially low-skilled ones. Whether real or threatened, the prospect of offshoring may be increasing the vulnerability of jobs and wages in developed countries.
...Globalisation requires mobility to ensure that workers are not trapped in jobs with no future. The report praises the so-called “flexicurity” approach adopted in Austria and Denmark to address this. In Austria, for example, workers have individual savings accounts, instead of traditional severance pay schemes, that move with them as they move jobs. If they lose their job, they can choose to withdraw funds from the account or save the entitlements built up towards a future pension.
Job losers should be compensated through social protection systems which are employment-friendly, the report notes. This can be done by providing adequate benefits hand-in-hand with “activation” policies which increase re-employment opportunities. Experience of Nordic countries and Australia shows that such policies, if well-designed, improve the job prospects of laid-off workers, thereby easing their fears about globalisation.
Addressing the labour arbitrage debate, the chapter authors concede that globalisation could "permanently increase" job insecurity for workers by making their employers more vulnerable to external shocks. But Angel Gurría, OECD secretary-general, moved to calm fears by saying that people's fears of losing jobs to foreign countries were often overblown: "Without job losses people are fearing the job losses." He called for politicians and journalists to foster a well-informed discussion of the benefits and costs of globalisation. "The story has to be told better," Mr Gurría said.
The FT was unimpressed. In its leader (cited above), it agreed that "better public relations may go part of the way", but governments still need to do more to help the losers. As Dani Rodrik notes:
You know something is going on when the FT berates globalization's cheerleaders for their complacency.
All just straws in the wind, perhaps. But I think I can can hear a gale coming...
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