"Attempting to Stop Globalization Can Cause More Harm Than Good" - Yale Center for the Study of Globalization

"The global economic transition to a post-industrial economy has increased pace since the end of the Cold War, but the dislocations caused by rapid globalization rage on...Politicians find themselves pandering to narrow constituencies with petty, irrelevant legislation to build coalitions, often with majorities so razor thin that they are ungovernable. From France to Poland to the US, the appeals to the extreme groups result in proposals of nativist immigration and trade policies that do little to assuage the economic uncertainty confronting increasing numbers of voters around the globe. ... journalist Richard Hornik warns that “the dislocations wrought by globalization’s creative destruction are nothing compared to the economic chaos unleashed when efforts are made to halt or reverse the process.”

Is this true? Does attempting to halt or slow globalization do more harm than good to the countries that take this strategy?

Here are some quotes from this Yale Center for the Study of Globalization article:

• Politicians are reaping the whirlwind of more than a decade of over-promising and scapegoating.


• For the workforce, no job is safe. For all but the very wealthiest, working lives will henceforth be spent worrying about tomorrow's paycheck, health benefits and pensions.


• Parties at both ends of the political spectrum in Europe and the US will be left with self-defeating policies of raising trade barriers, defending domestic industries in distress, limiting social benefits to “true” citizens and wrapping it all in patriotic bunting.


• If politicians at both ends of the political spectrum continue to win votes by pandering to the worst fears and basest instincts of a frightened electorate, it seems only a matter of time before the resulting governments indulge in the self-destructive grand gestures that could lead to a global trade war or a violent anti-immigrant backlash or both.

Globalization: When Cure Is Worse Than Malady

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