Hold Your Breath, It Gets Better

They took our jerbs! has been the cry of the working class for decades, and the most oft blamed entity is the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Now as Clinton and Obama try to court voters in Ohio, a state were an estimated 200,000 jobs have supposedly been lost due to NAFTA, both are scrambling to reinvent their records so as to seem in opposition to the agreement.

Yet again the Democrats pander to the most base of emotions (in this case fear and insecurity) in order to ‘connect’ with voters. But anti-globalization sentiments, and anti-NAFTA sentiments in particular, are growing among Americans in general as more and more industrial jobs move out of the country.

While Democrats continue to pander to these feelings of anger Republicans have been the only ones with the balls to tell the truth: our economy has shifted away from a manufacturing economy to a service economy. And as we speak we are shifting yet again, now towards an information economy. Does this hurt? Yes! 200,000 jobs lost hurts, but there is nothing that can be done about unless we want the government to attempt to prop up a dead industry.

It should be pointed out that we tried to protect agriculture as well when industrialization hit, and now we have subsidized farming; in 2004 alone the government spent over eight billion dollars in agriculture subsidies. Not only does this burden the federal government and increase our already atrocious debt, but it also wreaks havoc on the agriculture of third world countries that have yet to industrialize and thus still rely on agriculture; because the government hands out so much money to our farmers those in third would countries cannot come even close to competing with American agricultural exports and imports.

Consider for a moment that fifty years ago China had one of the most protectionist economies on the face of the earth. Now, as they have opened up to international trade and begun to privatize industry they are excelling economically, so much so that this once third world nation is set to out pace America as the worlds economic super power if it’s growth continues as expected. On the other hand the few remaining protectionist, anti-globalization states remaining (Myanmar, South Korea, etc.) are faltering, unable to pull themselves out of third world status.

So I’ll say it again, stop being pussies America! Yes globalization hurts, but it will get better, I promise. Americans only stand to gain from a wealthier world at large (wealthier world = more consumers = greater economic growth at home and abroad = more consumers = …you get it), and globalization is creating a wealthier world. China, the poster child for globalization, has seen a dramatic decrease in poverty rates over the past twenty years; the percentage of people living on less than one dollar a day in East Asia and the Pacific has decreased 80% since 1981; the proportion of the world’s population living in countries where per-capita food supplies are less than 2,200 calories a day decreased from 56% in the 1960s to below 10% by the 1990s; the percentage of the worlds children in the labor force has decreased from 24% in the 1960s to 10% in 2000.

Is globalization the world’s savior? No! Far from it, there are several problems facing the world in regards to globalization; agricultural subsidies in America (and other major nations such as the UK) have greatly hindered the progress of third world nations abroad, as I previously mentioned; international trade agreements are creating situations in which national sovereignty is being undermined and in the end we will all have to face the eventuality of some sort of one world governing power. The road ahead will be difficult; but we only have two choices, we can either face the future and keep moving forward or we can attempt to turn back and fight the inevitable. Let’s stop fighting the inevitable and start finding ways to move forward into a more prosperous and secure tomorrow.