Globalization
For a long time, it has been officially unfashionable to criticize globalization. We've been told to suck it up, take your medicine, and in the end we will have a better, stronger economy that benefits all. I don't think that argument is tenable anymore. Slate "Moneybox" columnist Daniel Gross writes in today's New York Times that globalization--the easy movement of capital from one country to another--is responsible for the sad fact that rising corporate profits, both in America and Europe, are not translating into rising wages for the average person. Median incomes for American workers, he writes, have remained largely stagnant since 2000, while corporate profits have nearly doubled.
The deck is stacked against labor, whether in unions or not. It is too easy for corporations to move production to low-wage countries. There is simply no downside (apart from quality, but let's politely cough) to moving an American factory to China, or a German factory to Poland. Gross says the easy movement of capital has forced down wages. Perhaps the most insensitive remark George W. Bush has made in recent months (who can keep track of them all?) was in India, where he said American shouldn't be upset about high-tech jobs moving from America to India because "Americans need to train for 21st century jobs" or words to that effect. Of course, those computer programming jobs were exactly the sort of jobs that Americans thought would guarantee them a future in the Internet economy.
What we need are federal laws to make it disadvantageous to move jobs and investment from America to low-wage foreign countries. Either the carrot or the stick, and probably both, can be used. The Internet changed the equation faster than America and Europe were able to adapt. Just as speed limits weren't posted the first day automobiles hit the road in the late 19th century, we have not gotten around to posting economic speed limits to protect our jobs and society from the blowback of this century's great phenomenon, the Internet. But the time has come. As a free and democratic people, we have the right to demand that our legislators take steps to limit the unnecessary carnage on the Information Superhighway, to use an old phrase. The world will not come to an end.