To what extent should we subscribe/accept globalization?

Question

To what extent should we subscribe/accept globalization?

Answer 1

To the extent that we realize that if we reject globalization, that we are consigning ourselves to a loss of our economic power and fall in our standard of living.  It would be economic and political suicide.

kanzei-right, and raising tariffs has NEVER done any harm, exacerbated global depressions, or been a cause of a world war.

Are you referring to the GATT that has "only" been around for about 60 years?  Because I would think that living standards have increased over the past 60 years.

"Slightly increasing"...like the creation of a middle class?  And the US GDP per capita has not experienced any long term decrease in recent times...

Are you sure about the no support thingie?  Because 87.5% of economists seem to agree that the US should lower or eliminate its current trade barriers...

China. India. Germany. Hong Kong. Singapore. Taiwan. Is that enough for you?

Answer 2

World War I started because of the gold standard?

Wow!!!     I thought that it was, in part, because the german chancellor Otto Von Bismark made tons of treaties that he didn't think would need to be enforced, that he ended up at war when he didn't want to be.

Some folks in the Balkins don't like each other.  An Austrian Archduke gets shot.  Austia attacks, Russia chimes in, Germany helps Austria.  For some reason, they decide that as long as they are going to war, they moght as well invade France, by going through the Netherlands.  Britain steps in to help.  The British Empire and Commonwealth steps in to assist the motherland.

After a few years of all out war, the americans decide to show up and take all the credit for defeating Germany.

Didn't know it was about opposing globalization of trade.

Answer 3

Danajaan's answer is absurd.

The United States rejected globalization from 1789 until about 1970 with an average 40% tariff.  During that period of time we became the most economically powerful nation in world history, and did it in record time.

MOST folks would agree that our economic troubles are recent, and are getting worse each year.  It's only since GATT that the "free trade" era has been in full force.

Globalization (the goal of free trade) is the idea of a world market: in which the free market theorist Ludwig Von Mises said would eventually see equalized wage rates and standards of living.  Our wage rates and standards of living are coming down dramatically and those of the "emerging nations" are coming up slightly to meet up.  

Forgetting the political and sovereignty questions, there is NO support for the idea that going deeper into a "world market" would somehow be good for the United States when ALL data show the opposite is true.

No free trading nation has EVER become more powerful, and no powerful nations has EVER been a free trading nation.

Answer 4

To the point of understanding that it is a desirable alternative to a world war.  Recall that World War I began exactly because governments decided to oppose globalization rather than adapt to it by abolishing the gold standard...

[Later additions]

Meister:

WWI did indeed start because of the gold standard.  Were there no gold standard, the worst thing that could happen to Europe would be a competitive devaluation.  With gold standard in place, expanding money supply was only possible if a country had a trade surplus, so the best way of preventing a recession was to force exports on neighbors.  J.M. Keynes referred to this process as "competitive struggle for markets" and believed it to be germane to the discussion of causes of WWI.  

kanzeigroup:

If the U.S. "rejected globalization from 1789 until about 1970", who's been selling all that cotton to the British and borrowing money from them (and other Europeans) to build all those railroads?  Also, take a look at early American fortunes (such as that of Cornelius Vanderbilt), and you will notice that they weren't made in farming or manufacturing, but in transocean shipping.

As to your claim that "our economic troubles are recent", you clearly have a very spotty knowledge of U.S. economic history.  The worst "economic trouble" in the U.S. history was the Great Depression of 1873-79, second-worst, the Great Depression of 1929-33.  The latter was made remarkably worse by the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act...

Answer 5

Never freedom is not a bargaining chip in any way or form . From my cold dead hands .