Thursday Apr 16, 2009

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I find it very strange that so many people, particularly on the left, demonize Globalization as this horrific new threat, the root of all modern evil. You know what's a product of globalization? Pasta. Latkes. BLTs. Peach cobbler. The exchange of goods and ideas (and yeah, disease and war) has been going on ever since some H. erectus thought, "hey, I wonder what's over that next hill," and discovered Asia. Sure, it's a mixed bag. Always has been. But it's not like it's some big new threat. It's just going a bit faster now. The trick is to figure out how to maximize the good and minimize the bad.
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velvet_petal:
It's when times get tough and people feel uncertainty on a personal level that most even begin to really think about these issues. I'm sure we will hear a lot of complaints about a lot of things (fairly or unfairly) now now that the credit bubble's burst. Things which existed before the downturn but drew little attention from folks when they were happy and secure....or had the illusion of security. There will also be a lot of finger pointing at "the other guy".

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From a selfish perspective, I just hope that this insecurity will be the painful push we as a nation need to move forward on a universal healthcare safety net for people.

cabaretic:
My reservations are mostly that rapidly industrializing countries use the same unfair labor practices like slave wages and child labor that plagued this country until they were properly done away with in the early 1930's. Globalization in and of itself is a good thing. The painful process of making sure the rest of the civilized world adheres to fair conduct in business, treats its workers with respect rather than disdain, and keeps abreast of technological advances that do not destroy the earth is the much thornier matter to me.

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