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Why do people oppose globalization?
Dani Rodrik writes:
So the "us" and "them" characterization that Tyler attributes to irrational nativism perhaps has more to do with the absence of a common set of international rules on labor standards, environment, consumer safety, and so on.
(There is much more at the link.) I was surprised to read this. In the 1980s people were very hostile to Japan and Japanese imports, even though Japan at the time was quite wealthy and had relatively high standards in these areas. I also receive a fair number of emails -- some of them of the hate variety -- by people who are suspicious of the rise of China. I believe it is Chinese success which bothers them even though they sometimes come up with ancillary stories about unfairnesss. These people are not less upset when other countries use capital rather than labor or when foreign production does not create much pollution.
Most of all, many people in poorer countries object to having to compete with America, with McDonald's, with Hollywood, and so on. Those objections are usually more strenuous than the complaints of Americans about a poorer China and of course the poorer countries tend to be more protectionist, in part for this reason. That's where feelings of unfairness are truly strong. There's nothing special about the "regulatory arbitrage" unfairness story and in fact it is one of the weaker feelings of unfairness out there. In reality the entire past of the world is unfair but cosmopolitanites can look past that to appreciate the gains from ongoing trade.
Rodrik himself seems to object to when Americans trade with countries in which first world labor standards are violated. But doesn't such trade raise wages in these countries and also give a long-run boost to labor standards? And where does the net unfairness lie? Haven't the Western powers -- if only through imperialism -- usually treated these countries much worse than vice versa? Didn't we steal Panama from Colombia for instance and take away a huge chunk of Mexico? (Were Europeans so nice to the Ottoman Empire?) Maybe the American worker ought to feel those folks deserve a bit of regulatory arbitrage (and that's not what most of the trade is based upon) in return. But it is striking how infrequently such a fairness calculus -- whether correct or not -- is even considered. That again is because most people engage in "in group, out group" thinking.
The bottom line is that most people support their countries to a highly irrational degree in most international questions or disputes. That's just obvious -- watch the World Cup -- and yes Jonathan Swift understood that too.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on June 11, 2008 at 06:56 AM in Political Science | Permalink
Comments
I agree that the real reason for most people is xenophobia, and then they go looking for a more acceptable justification to give as their stated reason.
As hard as it is for cosmopolites like us to understand, deep down most people seem to believe that foreigners are less human than their countrymen. :(
Posted by: Jacqueline at Jun 11, 2008 7:11:47 AM
Irrational nativism has evolutinary survival value. It replaces the herd instinct in species that do not think conceptually.
100,000 years ago, there were rational self-interested individuals conpeting for resources with people who were willing to sacrifice in battle for whatever group they were part of.
Guess whose gene were passed on?
Posted by: John Goodman at Jun 11, 2008 7:24:57 AM
Reading Zakaria's "Post-American World" has part of it - as a country we're so inwardly focused that when someone else rises to our attention, our first reaction is negative. The reason India and China suddenly are a problem is because we've basically ignored them for the last 15 years and don't have a realistic solution or strategy for dealing with their rise
Posted by: Kevin at Jun 11, 2008 7:42:07 AM
I have to say that the analogies that Rodrik chooses seem rather telling:
But suppose instead that Harvard hires John Plagiarizer, who has a much longer vita and larger citation counts than either one of us, because... well because he is a flagrant plagiarizer. I think I would have pretty good reason to feel cheated.
An extreme example? Let me make it less so. Suppose that I am an experimental psychologist instead of an economist and the person Harvard hires in my place is someone who has accumulated a long vita by virtue of not having to abide by human subjects review standards. (You can find out a lot about human behavior through torture.) Would I not feel treated unfairly? You bet I would.
The suggestion is that foreign workers gain an unfair, undeserved advantage through cheating, unethical shortcuts or even evil (BTW-- torture of subjects in a psychological experiment is a less extreme example than plagery?!?)
The world's poor, trying to take the first steps away from back-breaking subsistence farming are NOT cheaters. Their relative poverty is NOT an unearned, unfair 'advantage'. Sheesh.
Posted by: Slocum at Jun 11, 2008 8:02:30 AM
Exhibit A: Holland's 3-0 defeat of Italy this week. Aside from a city swathed in orange and a persistent roar throughout the night, the match sparked a conflict between national pride and commerce: a local merchant offered €100 off a €400 flat-panel TV for every goal scored by the Dutch team. The unthinkable third goal induced a run on the sets, quickly depleting supplies and causing the merchant to withdraw the offer. I like to imagine him squirming in the last few minutes of the match.
Posted by: Joseph Logan at Jun 11, 2008 8:02:36 AM
I think it's quite a bit of racism masquerading as caring for the people in those countries.
Imports from Japan or South Korea: bad
Imports from Italy or Denmark: acceptable
Buying Japanese cars: un-American, unpatriotic, killing Detroit
Buying German cars: how sophisticated
Software outsourcing to India: bad
Software outsourcing to Eastern Europe: no complaints
All immigrants from the UK: come on in
Skilled H1-B visas from India: keep them out because they're taking our jobs
Posted by: LZ at Jun 11, 2008 8:21:43 AM
I see this as further evidence of Hanson's point:
"To think more objectively, become less allied."
I would argue that becoming less allied to your national group virtually requires spending a significant chunk of time (at least a year) outside of your home country.
Posted by: Jeff H. at Jun 11, 2008 8:40:01 AM
"I would argue that becoming less allied to your national group virtually requires spending a significant chunk of time (at least a year) outside of your home country."
...or in it during an election year.
Posted by: josh at Jun 11, 2008 8:47:13 AM
Why do people oppose globalization?
A lack of shared cultural values.
Posted by: Jody at Jun 11, 2008 8:52:52 AM
Globalization means change. People dislike change.
Posted by: jorod at Jun 11, 2008 9:27:21 AM
I don't understand the big surprise here. People have congregated in groups of varying sizes and employing strange criteria for 'membership' since time immemorial. Animals (and plants) do the same.
There will always, always be an 'us versus them' mentality at some level somewhere. To deny that is to deny reality.
I think what's more at play is that people are generally averse to change and prefer status quo whenever it provides a base level of comfort. Things that challenge the status quo - an influx of immigrants, upsetting of an industry by foreign competition, etc. generate an unfavorable reaction at first.
Posted by: meter at Jun 11, 2008 9:32:12 AM
I liked the example of Japan. Another argument in another direction would be this: if a country has very poor labour standards, but does not export competitively to the US, does it get the kind of criticism China is getting?
Agricultural labourers in Brazil´s poorer regions work in very hard conditions, and that has been the case for centuries. But few people abroad worried about them until sugar-cane ethanol became a plausible alternative for oil.
I am not saying labour standards in Brazil should not be improved, and, if that happens because of international outcry, whatever its political motivation, that´s OK. But there is a certain point after which rich protectionists are simply trying to regulate poor countries into bankruptcy.
If that is not the case, what would be the share of American GDP protectionists would be willing to spend to train African workers and improve African economies until they reach the same productivity levels of American workers (and thus become "fair competitors" while remaining economically competitive)?
I am sure Rodrik would be willing to invest a lot in that cause, but I do not think that is the case for most rich-world protectionists.
Posted by: NPTO at Jun 11, 2008 9:45:51 AM
"So the "us" and "them" characterization that Tyler attributes to irrational nativism perhaps has more to do with the absence of a common set of international rules on labor standards, environment, consumer safety, and so on."
This leads me to ask a couple questions:
1. Does Rodrik seriously believe that the U.S. has higher standards in these areas than say.. the EU? Canada? South Korea? I'd like to see his evidence in that area.
Example: Asian countries, on average, are far, far ahead of the United States in adoption GHS (Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals). So is Rodrik saying that the U.S. shouldn't have freer trade because the U.S. is slower in adopting international standards than, say, Taiwan?
2. Does Rodrik think that California should have free trade with, say, Louisiana? Or does he think that the two states have even remotely equivalent standards in environmental law?
Posted by: Mike Moffatt at Jun 11, 2008 10:02:21 AM
Great post! Except for this one:
"Were Europeans so nice to the Ottoman Empire"?
Well, maybe not. Some of them were not so nice to the Ottoman Empire or to its occupation forces, but many Europeans were certainly not so nice to the German Reich either (although other Europeans supported or even maintained it). Why be nice to any genocidal empire?
Your are comparing with U.S. colonialism and expansionism. I am sure you would easily find a large number of appropriate European colonialist and expansionist parallels in any book about world (or European) history.
But, sorry, few people except for ultra-nationalist Turks feel any compassion for the Ottoman Empire nowadays.
Posted by: Sandra at Jun 11, 2008 10:05:09 AM
What I object to about "globalisation" as it implemented today is that all it really means is that global capital has complete freedom of movement whilst global labour is still tightly controlled and regulated. As if capital needed more advantages over labour.
Posted by: yank in london at Jun 11, 2008 10:05:57 AM
To be honest, I expected a bit better of Rodrik. The safety and environmental standard objections to trade have always struck me as just about the lamest and most obvious rationalizations currently deployed in US politics. Most opponents of trade really are simply looking for protection for their sector, full stop. If that doesn't make Rodrik feel good about his political allies, he should consider getting new allies, rather than making paper-thin excuses for the ones he has.
Posted by: Dave at Jun 11, 2008 10:11:07 AM
Just look at American and EU subsidies on agriculture. The obvious reason people oppose certain globalization is because some policy would benefit people with "different colored skin" (Central Americans, South Amaericans, Africans) at the expense of the "white man". I point to the fact that the most socialized countries in the world are the most homogeneous societies. Most people don't mind trading with someone that looks like them, but once we start talking about trading with Asians, we need to set up huge barriers to trade. Labor standards are just a red herring.
Posted by: Jay at Jun 11, 2008 10:24:32 AM
"Most people don't mind trading with someone that looks like them, but once we start talking about trading with Asians, we need to set up huge barriers to trade. Labor standards are just a red herring."
Labor standards are a red herring, but not, primarily, for racism. They're a smokescreen for self interest. While free trade has enriched the country as a whole, most protectionists are people who've lost solidly middle-class manufacturing jobs to workers with incredible comparitive advantage in developing nations.
Straw-manning globalization opposition as racism or chauvenism belies the fact that many, many people in the US have been hurt by it--in the form of redistributing their cushy income to corporate cost-savings.
Posted by: MK at Jun 11, 2008 11:11:33 AM
Obama always qualifies his support for free trade with environmental qualifications. This will provide him with an out to appease the unions.
Posted by: jorod at Jun 11, 2008 11:52:31 AM
That again is because most people engage in "in group, out group" thinking.
Most elites in the West eschew national identity as a group because it is associated, in their minds, with racism or nationalism. On issues of trade, immigration, and sovereignty, the elites are consistently in the minority. A majority of Americans favor restrictions on legal immigration, let alone illegal, while Europeans consistenly reject the EU Constitution at the polls.
Posted by: 8 at Jun 11, 2008 11:58:41 AM
Hi, I'm a Marxist complaining about exploitation of poor immigrant workers or black market factory workers in 3rd world countries, who actually find their condition more favorable than living in and obeying the laws of a country implementing Marxist policies I like.
Let me see how non-obvious I can make that contradiction sound ... OH!!! I know! I'll use moral indignation! That's always a winner!
Posted by: Person at Jun 11, 2008 12:20:36 PM
Excessive "globalization", like excessive immigration is wrong because it denies that people are just that, people and not widgets of economic models.
Furthermore, the USA was founded on independence first and foremost - not equality. Indpendence of the individual and independence of the nation. Excessive "free trade", nonsense, since most other nations (mainly Asian nations) highly restrict their markets to US exports.
There is a difference between xenophobia and common sensed nationalism, which most Americans are, by the way. Americans were originally expected to look after themselves but globalism is counter to this wise notion. Hence, we will lose our indpenedence and sovereignty......globalism is the new one world communism.
Posted by: BET at Jun 11, 2008 12:36:34 PM
Globalization in itself is a good thing, what people oppose is the corporatocracy that comes with it. Trade agreements like NAFTA on the surface seem to improve the economy of all the participant countries, but in reality what happens is that only the rich people get benefits.
What benefit have the poor Mexican farmers for example? It's a large part of the population, and it can't compete with foreigner big corporations. Sure, you can say it's the natural way the economy works, the people that rule the world will make sure the macro-economy looks good even though poverty indexes increase.
The richer country always gets the upper-hand, of course, the poor countries also improve a bit, but only the rich people.
Only naive people think it's a win-win situation.
Posted by: Felipe Contreras at Jun 11, 2008 12:50:32 PM
I thought the USA was founded on liberty.
If I should choose to buy goods and services from abroad, isn't it my right ('natural liberty') to do so?
If Dani Rodrik objects to labor standards abroad he is perfectly free not to purchase imported goods.
Posted by: PJ at Jun 11, 2008 12:54:41 PM
Globalization or so called "free trade" is not really free trade. It is government who picks and chooses the winners and losers in various industries. Besides, most, repeat, most other nations (namely Asian nations) highly regulate and protect their industries because they know that their own independence as nations is dependent on their engineering, manufacturing, agriculture industries. Only pie in the sky American liberals (of the left (Clintons, Osama/Obama) and of the right (Joreg Bush, Juan McAmnesty)), think "nationalism" is dead and time for "world citizenry" - a HORRIBLE mistake.
Nationalism is making a comeback (thankfully!). And for you young, leftists, I don't mean rabid Nazi-like nationalism, I mean common sensed nationalism.
That's why too much trade and immigration destroys a nation's culture, history, language, etc. People oppose globalization precisely because it destroys one's native culture and turns everyone into nothing but a cell phone toting, mind-numbed "citizen of the planet". How pathetic. These young Americans have been mis-educated. They don't know the true history of the USA and it's founding principles.
Posted by: BET at Jun 11, 2008 1:40:07 PM
