Dialogue with an anti-globalist
Kevin Drum points us to this nifty dialogue between an economist and an anti-globalist. Here are some of the better parts:
[Economist]: “We say we need to use some of the gains from trade to help workers hurt by globalization, but beyond the broad acknowledgment of that point, we don’t have much specific to offer. There’s the usual list, unemployment insurance, wage insurance, job retraining, help with relocation, food stamps, minimum wage, EITC, etc., etc., but most of these have been around for awhile and don’t generate much excitement or interest.”
[Skeptic]: “That’s because things like job retraining don’t work, though they seem to make people who still have jobs feel better, and the rest of the things on the list just help you put off taking a worse job than you had before. […] Let’s get to the bottom line since I have to get going, so what do we do?
[Economist]: “I don’t have the answer. As I said, when costs were concentrated on small groups of individuals it was easier to help. Now, with the costs so widespread and the benefits so concentrated at the top of the income distribution, there will be more resistance.”
[Skeptic]: “So that’s it? The rich will be unhappy so we can’t do it? Figures.”
[Economist]: “We have to keep articulating to politicians and the public that the costs are different now, they are widespread, and that the gains are concentrated at the top.
Gee, who woulda thunk that globalization and free trade would create, to quote George Carlin, “a few winners and a whole lotta losers?”
Oh yeah, I know who: Noam Chomsky, a guy who isn’t actually an economist:
What was stressed outside the mainstream about the goals of NAFTA is also now quietly conceded: the real goal was to “lock Mexico in” to the “reforms” that had made it an “economic miracle,” in the technical sense of the term: a “miracle” for U.S. investors and the Mexican rich, while the population sank into misery. [from Profit Over People.]
Now, I’m not the world’s biggest Chomsky fan, but you don’t have to be a radical anarchist like him to understand how the politics of free trade work. When certain people support a deal- in NAFTA’s case, the investor class- and certain people oppose it- i.e., every single labor union in the country- it’s pretty easy to see who the winners and losers are going to be.
Now, there are a lot of good people who support free trade. Brad DeLong and Paul Krugman come to mind, fr’instance. But I think even the good free traders really underestimate the anxiety and instability that globalization causes. When workers’ jobs are outsourced and offshored- and when those workers have no hope of getting a comparable job with comparable pay- it’s not just their livelihood that disappears, but their sense of self-worth.
I know economists don’t like to deal much with feeeeeeeeeeeelings (and I don’t either, for that matter), but I think we can all agree that it’s incredibly important to have a job where you feel as though you’re using your skills. When those jobs disappear to another country, and when people can’t find work that employs the skills that they’ve worked hard to cultivate over the years, then people get very, very angry. It isn’t just their job that they’re losing, but a part of what defines them as individuals.
As the sad globalization skeptic in our excerpted dialogue said:
“You told us go to college, get a good education, do something technical, computer science, engineering, become an accountant, go to law school… Well I did all that and more and you were right – for awhile it worked out great. Then one day it all changed. My job was outsourced. One day I had a job, the next day I didn’t. I did everything I was supposed to do and it didn’t help, not one bit.”
Basically, yes.
And our anti-globalist computer programmer here isn’t even as bad off as most people. Because of his education and connections, he still has a hope of getting a job that employs his talents in some capacity. The people who have been really, really hammered by the dearth of quality jobs- think inner city black people and structurally unemployed midwesterners- aren’t nearly so lucky.
Yay! Great stuff, Brad!
So, what’s your solution, there, Paul Goodman? We’re supposed to, what, not do something that rich people want to do, just because it would create a huge new permanent underclass? GET A JOB, HIPPIE
And nothing will be done about it. Whose support does a candidate require to get elected?
The people who have been really, really hammered by the dearth of quality jobs- think inner city black people and structurally unemployed midwesterners…
Whoa, that’s new. When did that start happening?
Funny comments on that link, you’d think ‘economists’ were a monolithic group like ‘leftists’ and ‘rethugs’.
And nothing will be done about it. Whose support does a candidate require to get elected?
Yep, yep and yep.
Our political system is badly broken, which happens from time to time. I don’t expect our political system to be perfect, but I do think it’s gotten to the point where we have an aristocratic class that is effectively sheltered from the public on issues like free trade. That needs changed. As Josh Marshall said, “You’ll never be rid of barnicles forever, but it’s still a good idea to scrape them off your boat every now and then.”
Whoa, that’s new. When did that start happening?
Oh, it’s been going on since the ’70s. But it hasn’t gotten any better for the people affected, and is still a problem.
Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt (which I wore to the unemployment office)…
Been contract working ever since. Doing all right, but not making what I was making (nor is my former boss doing as well before outsourcing).
We always gotta take that extra step to declare that we’re not Chomsky-following robots because that’s the quick way to prove to tepid liberals that we’re not one of those crazy people.
So, it’s okay to quote him every now and then, as long as we always take time to reassure the cautious that hey, we got gutz, we can loudly acknowledge that He may be wrong. Unlike all the other academics that we ever quote whom we are presumed to be in 100% lockstep agreement at all times, because they ain’t all crazy’n’sh*t like that Chomsky guy sometimes is.
(And also, it’s Chomsky’s fault that the US bombed and carpet bombed Cambodia from 1965 to 1973, which he kept warning the US not to do, with more tonnage than dropped during WWII, killing maybe a half million people directly and handing the entire country and particularly its rural population to the Khmer Rouge guerrillas, and after the takeover there was not a single, solitary thing the US could have done {like it would have helped the starving populace to keep getting carpet bombed}.
http://www.yale.edu/cgp/us.htm
Yep, that whole Cambodia thing, it’s all Chomsky’s fault, because he didn’t personally fly his own fleet of fighters to block the US’ B-52’s from dropping bombs all over Cambodia and handing power to the lunatic Khmer Rouge, and he personally didn’t send the Chomsky army to help the Vietnamese, whose invasion was the only thing that could possibly, and did, topple the Khmer Rouge. Yes, Cambodia sure was a humiliating lesson for Chomsky, that’ll show him. Good thing the US was so, so opposed to the Khmer Rouge genocide that its foreign policy was the thing which handed them power and a starving population with collapsed agricultural production to boot.)
Michael Moore is fat!
You know, I read Chomsky and almost never disagree with him. I guess I must be one of them there leftist nuts!
I know economists don’t like to deal much with feeeeeeeeeeeelings (and I don’t either, for that matter).
—
Feelings like … hmmm … being poor ?
Tres gauche.
So let’s just blame being poor on the poor. Lazy, non-entrepreurial bastards.
[Skeptic]: “So that’s it? The rich will be unhappy so we can’t do it? Figures.�
A concise summary of what’s wrong with a lot of things.
If Mike Barnicle was clinging to my boat, you’re damned right I’d scrape the bastard off.
Oh yeah, and when I’m President of these here Benighted States, Professor Chomsky will be my first choice for Secretary of State.
Wait–where’s Grampaw?
The people who have been really, really hammered by the dearth of quality jobs- think inner city black people and structurally unemployed midwesterners…
Whoa, that’s new. When did that start happening?
Oh, it’s been going on since the ’70s. But it hasn’t gotten any better for the people affected, and is still a problem.
Since the 70’s, eh? Interesting, guess i missed it.
Feelings like … hmmm … being poor ?
Tres gauche.
So let’s just blame being poor on the poor. Lazy, non-entrepreurial bastards.
Dude, you tried getting a job with a degree in economics recently?
Chomsky, to me, is like Phish. Not my thing, but I respect em for being good at what they do. My problem is with their hardcore fan base, who try n make far too much of a niche thing.
Chomsky generally has a point, but I don’t see where he has answers.
my father had a giant poster in his office when i was a kid (i guess in the late 70s or early 80s) showing the accelerating concentration of wealth in this country. that was then. it’s only got worse over time (shameless plug–my father also wrote a couple of excellent books about it, including “The Politics of Inequality” which remains well worth reading).
my takeaway from all this was: don’t have a job that can be outsourced or down-sized. so i went to hollywood. now, if i concentrate really hard, maybe i can be wealthy.
Chomsky is what the left would look like if this country actually HAD a left. Instead, this country is made up of about 30% wingnut, 30% centrist, 5% dirty fucking hippie and 35% people who truly don’t give a shit one way or the other.
Look at the 2008 presidential candidates: it’s wingnuts versus centrists. I’m closer to Chomsky’s politics than Hillary Clinton’s, fer chrissake. I don’t agree with everything that comes out of Chomsky’s mouth, but a lot of the time he’s devastatingly on the money. Yet Chomsky– an intellectual giant regardless of what you think of his politics– is completely marginalized and our national discourse is handed over to Wingnut Welfare Nation.
And no matter who, or what we elect to positions of leadership in this country, we build aircraft carriers rather than a functional education system, we build nuclear submarines instead of a working health care system, we support military bases in 170 countries instead of maintaining our declining infrastructure. We spend spit on real programs to assist the poor, but spend billions to build prisons to warehouse them.
The only thing that can save this nation is the left. But as long as the political environment is such that you can be effectively smeared as “soft on crime”, “soft on defense” or “against our troops”, as long as the spinmeisters continue to glorify militarism, overflying sporting events with jet fighters and using “the military” as the universal jeopardy answer to every question, the long slide into irrelevance will continue…
mikey
Capitalism is a shit sandwich; The more bread you got the less shit you taste.
These people think they have “defeated” Communism so they no longer have to worry about the historical dialectic. Here’s hoping (a bit) that their reminder doesn’t involve being strung up from a lamp-post with their own entrails by a bunch of revolutionaries created by their moronic economic policies.
JK47 – exactly.
I recently read “Failed States”. I’d really be curious to know what exactly Chomsky says in that book that anyone here would disagree with.
Of all the current crop of Dem presidential candidates, Edwards is the one closest to my politics – at least he’s actually talking about helping poor people – and even he is basically a centrist
mikey, you are so right.
mikey said,
The only thing that can save this nation is the left
So right, we need more people !
My first encounters with Chomsky involved grammar. I found (and still find) his transformational work solid and his government and binding theory necessary but not sufficient. It was much later that I discovered his political thought.
Ultimately I feel rather the same way about his politics — he’s more often right than not, but he tends to oversimplify. Or maybe it’s just that he consistently seeks a universal answer to systems so complex they can’t be answered in a neat package. In other words, brilliant thinker, but a bit impatient about conditions and cases that don’t fit the construct he’s crafted.
Wow. That was boring. Sorry.
Candy said,
Of all the current crop of Dem presidential candidates, Edwards is the one closest to my politics – at least he’s actually talking about helping poor people – and even he is basically a centrist
Surely such a battle-hardened and patriotic soldier as Edwards should know that there’s only winning a war or the other thing, and if you ain’t calling for a win, you’re calling for a loss. By the way, how many times will the media play Pony’s famous old “I’m all for the war and I always will be and I don’t care if we never find any WMD, it was the right thing to do?” appearance on Russert? Vegas has the over/under at “When Rosie O’Fat flies.”
(story over)
(I have a distinct personal story, that consist of me getting my ass kicked, and later me kicking ass, quite violently, but I won’t tell it, it’s WAY too complex to understand if you werent there, and way to violent for any of you to consider me or others who might be attached to me as human)
This RUSE! is a method of inciting internal revolution without personal responsibility.
John Edwards, a Hundred Millionaire is pulling the strings of class warfare, remember that, as shit happens day in and day out.
Hey, remember Jim Webb’s strong message of economic populism delivered in the Dem’s response to Der Fratboy’s SOTU address this year?
Evidently, neither does anyone else.
Smiling Mortician, I hear what you’re saying. We have to have some sort of governing theory, though, and when you’re trying to establish a sane and workable policy for dealing with the world, you can’t be overly concerned with how many angels can dance on the head of a pin I’m not advocating hacking straight through the Gordian knot as a way to solve complex issues, of course, but at the same time, some simplification is necessary. But I do agree that you have a point, and it was not boring.
Certain poorly spelled commenters are boring and, I might add, weirdly convoluted. Queue cello:
Rasp, rasp, rasp, slurp, rasp.
(Pssst … cue cello … unless you’re waiting in line for your turn to play …
— always a risk calling others on spelling, grammar, etc.)
John Edwards, a Hundred Millionaire is pulling the strings of class warfare, remember that, as shit happens day in and day out.
Better to me a hundred millionaire like George Bush or Mitt Romney– you know, the kind that give poor people the finger.
“What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is that they all want to stay in Texas. Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this (chuckle) – this is working very well for them.”
Class warfare indeed.
John Edwards, a Hundred Millionaire is pulling the strings of class warfare, remember that, as shit happens day in and day out.
Better to be a hundred millionaire like George Bush or Mitt Romney– you know, the kind that give poor people the finger.
“What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is that they all want to stay in Texas. Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this (chuckle) – this is working very well for them.”
Class warfare indeed.
Oops, sorry for the double (now triple) post. Thought I caught that typo in time. Gaah!
Um, queue is correctly spelled, unless you’re referring to a cue ball…
…or not. Hmmm….. sorry, you’re right. Oops.
Candy- Haven’t read Failed States, so I can’t answer your question directly, but here’s an effort nonetheless. My problem with Chomsky is similar to my problem with Said, tho I, in truth, have more respect for Said’s work.
I read Hegemony or Survival, and for the most part my general response was, yeah, duh, but I don’t know about some underlying premises. There’s a presumption of malicious intent in Said’s work that I don’t agree is always present in manifestations of Orientalism, and Chomsky, it seems in my limited vantage, has a similar presumption that anything a major world power does will be harmful.
I guess my problem is similar to Smiling Mortician’s. Grand narratives are, by definition, fictions. The only thing that’s universal is the universe. But then I’m philosophically opposed to anything even vaguely Hegelian, left or right.
I, too, am bloogy tired of the “let me apologise in advance for quoting Chomsky” trope. Every time someone apologises for quoting a statement that they agree with, they give ground to the enemy. Have some cajones, man.
I, too, am bloody tired of the “let me apologise in advance for quoting Chomsky” trope. Every time someone apologises for quoting a statement that they agree with, they give ground to the enemy. Have some cajones, man.
Dammit, I thought I hit stop fast enough to keep the misspelled comment from posting.
Preview button, etc., etc.
And no matter who, or what we elect to positions of leadership in this country, we build aircraft carriers rather than a functional education system, we build nuclear submarines instead of a working health care system, we support military bases in 170 countries instead of maintaining our declining infrastructure.
The military spending, though, is the game that I rarely see mentioned. As the global cop, for better or for worse, the US spends on a military apparatus that for security reasons will not be outsourced: it’s an economic strength that no other country can muster regardless of free trade. In whatever the new world order is the US gets to keep a major engine of protectionism.
Well, admittedly a Grand Unifying Theory is an impossiblity. I can’t argue as to Said, haven’t read him. I’m a working class girl who went to community college, and haven’t had the advantages of comparative philosphy classes, although with what little I know of Hegel, I don’t see Chomsky as “Hegelian”. That being said, I simply have to go by what I feel, and I feel myself saying, as I read Chomsky, “Yes, that is exactly what I’ve been coming to believe, and think, through observation of what is going on in America and the world today, and my own personal experience.”
So that’s as far as I can go with it, basically.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/31/148254
Nah, Chomsky isn’t particularly Hegelian, but any time grand historical narratives come up H pops into my mind. It’d be wonderful if everything would fit neatly into a little box, but not gonna happen. What would be outside the box?
Like I said, I found myself in general agreement with Chomsky, but the underlying perspective, the world view, animating him is not one I buy into. I think he works by fitting the world into his way of seeing things, not vice versa.
OT, but what’s happened to The Editors’ haunts? Every time I’ve tried going to http://thepoorman.net in the last couple days, I get an error message?
The military spending, I believe, is substantially excessive. All America really needs for “defense” is a strategic deterrent and air power. There is no credible 21st century military threat that is viable without air dominance. You cannot mass ships, armor, infantry or artillery if you are vulnerable from the air. Of course, American defense spending has fueled economic growth for decades, so it does serve a purpose. But it could be replaced.
My real problem is not the spending. That’s a symptom. My real problem is the growing militarism. This society is horrendously militarized, so completely and to the extent that we don’t even see it. And yet, from natural disasters to prison riots to wildfires to border security to drug interdiction to diplomatic and political disagreements, America turns first to her military. And our entire society suffers as a result…
mikey
OT, but what’s happened to The Editors’ haunts?
Blue Thunder.
Yes, Candy, ‘queue’ was, indeed, correctly spelled. Unfortunately, you were looking for its homonymn ‘cue.’ Trust me on this one.
For future reference:
http://www.cooper.com/alan/homonym_list.html
Whoops. Didn’t see your ‘Oops’ post. Sorry; it won’t happen again.
Whole lotta oopsin’ goin’ on around here today. Kinda like a microcosm for, oh, I dunno, Teh Leaders of Teh Free World in the past several years.
Except that people here notice their mistakes, consult experts, make corrections, issue apologies as necessary and move on — all without killing anyone.
So I guess it’s not really the same. Carry on.
The Poor Man went down in a blaze of Eschaton linking, I believe. At least, there was a very coincidental nexus of the site’s blowupedness and a post by Atrios about Keyboard Kommandos.
I think American economists will see the light about globalization about the time people realize they can get perfectly good Indian and Chinese economists who are just as — if not more — accurate at far cheaper prices. Those people who actually want economists, that is.
So is The Poor Man slated to return, or have The Editors gone the way of all Billmon and Bérubé?
My first encounters with Chomsky involved grammar. I found (and still find) his transformational work solid and his government and binding theory necessary but not sufficient.
My only encounters with Chomsky involve grammar, and I see very little in GB that’s really necessary. There’s some insights to be sure, but the theory posits a lot of things that are not directly motivated by empirical data (not necessarily bad), and unwarranted assumptions and ugly hacks in some places to make boundary conditions come out right (kinda bad). And I think a large part of the motivation behind the Minimalist Program is an attempt to deal with such issues, but there’s still a number of theoretical warts.
There’s some insights
There is?
Wow. That’s in tents…
mikey
We’re in yur house, paypalling yur d00dz™®©³²1!!!1
How in tents is that?
For all intensive purposes, it are lots.
Sadly, the problem’s not globalization per se.
The problem is that the globalization of the LABOR is happening without the globalization of the CAPITAL which is inferior to it. Or is supposed to be, anyways.
I wonder when the Repubs are going to ever realize that Lincoln was a dirty fucking hippie?
I guess I’ll join the small ranks of those who refuse to apologize for quoting Chomsky, I enjoy his critiques of corporatism. To be honest, those critiques helped shape my ideas into the lefty libertarian mold.
Some of the Thugs of which I am acquainted think the only bigger evils than Teh Clenis were Lincoln and FDR.
Man, I’d love a midi of “Paranoid Android”. Of course, I also watched 10.5 Apocalypse on purpose, too, so my tastes might be, um, questionable.
Now is the winter of our discount tents…
/Red Green
The fact is, if liberals want to wage class war, they will always loose.
The fact is, I don’t know how many of you d00dz and d00dettez read Driftglass.
This is good.
The honest answer to the question raised by Frank Luntz – “Why do Republicans keep winning if their candidates are so shitty?� – is that the GOP base is morally subhuman at a deep and probably incurable level.
is that the GOP base is morally subhuman at a deep and probably incurable level.
The people who really pay attention to what we think of as movers and shakers in the GOP are us. I think the GOP base just doesn’t do much reading.
The fact is, if liberals want to wage class war, they will always loose.
Let’s see. I have no idea what it means. It’s either misspelled or it uses words incorrectly. And it’s not readily apparent which it is. And it sounds pompous.
Yep. It’s Gary…
mikey
The problem is that the globalization of the LABOR is happening without the globalization of the CAPITAL which is inferior to it. Or is supposed to be, anyways.
Actually, it’s more that capital has been globalised but labour hasn’t. I think it was one of the underlying assumption of Adam Smith’s “Invisible hand of the market thingie” that labour could move freely but capital couldn’t. This made sense in those days, because labour could walk, take sailing ships, ride trains, etc, while capital was mainly tied up in land and factories.
Whereas now, capital, being electronic and largely imaginary (and there’s a topic you don’t want to get me started on) can whizz around the world in no time, whereas people are being more and more restricted in their movement. And without those two conditions, the invisible hand of the market doesn’t work: they’re necessary assumptions, in mathematician-speak.
Fucking economists who think that economics is a real science really get up my nose. I’d often like to roll up my delicate ladylike sleeves and give them a good pummelling.
Bloody economics, nothing more than entrail-reading in my opinion, hmph, I think I need some therapeutic cello-playing.
Rasp, rasp, slurp, rasp. Hey, Gary, lookit what I can do! Rasp, rasp, struggle, rasp, slurp, rasp…
I was thinking more of the fact that jobs can move relatively quickly from rich to poor countries, but the money itself does not move from the hands of the businesses that have the jobs.
All America really needs for “defense� is a strategic deterrent and air power. There is no credible 21st century military threat that is viable without air dominance.
Um, except an insurgency. Which traditionally have managed to keep on keepin’ on in spite of the other side’s air dominance.