Arnold Kling

Globalization Protesters

Arnold Kling, Great Questions of Economics
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Reading this report by Morgan Stanley's Steve Roach on the World Economic Forum (known as "Davos" but this year held in New York), it now seems that the strongest anti-globalization protest took place inside the conference.

The verdict, in my mind, went very much against...the survival of globalization in its current form...

the next strain of globalization seems likely to be accompanied by more governmental intrusion for America than was the case in the 1980s and 1990s.

Reading the entire commentary, what I hear the Davos folks saying is,

  1. America's relatively free-wheeling capitalism has been successful.
  2. Europe and Japan are hamstrung by government intervention and resistance to change.
  3. The underdeveloped world is even more resistant to change and failing even worse.
  4. Therefore, what we need is a compromise. Other countries need to be more flexible, and U.S. needs to be more regulated.

I can follow the argument all the way up to the fourth point, but there I'm lost.

Discussion Question. If flexibility and dynamism are the keys to economic growth, how would it help the world for the U.S. to become less flexible and dynamic?

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