Note: After this
article, I want to focus my writing on Christians. You could call my articles sermons or Bible
studies. If our country is saved, morally,
economically, politically, spiritually, it will be because Christians have
increased their involvement in our culture and our politics.
I will continue to write short responses to letters and
columns in the newspapers, most of which are posted here. My sermons and Bible studies will be on my other site,LarrysBibleStudies.blogspot.com
If you are new to this site, be sure to check out the older posts.
If you are new to this site, be sure to check out the older posts.
Globalization: Spreading Poverty Worldwide
We have been told, and we are constantly being retold in
case we might forget, that globalization is inevitable, good, and necessary for
(our) prosperity. I believe that this is
a false narrative. I believe that the
only people who prosper in globalization are the rich and the politicians, but neither
need this to get richer. They just use
whatever we give them to make their money, though if you tax the rich too high,
they will just move somewhere else where they can keep or make more money.
Globalization is essentially political correctness applied
to nations, where nations only became rich at the expense of the poor, where nations
are all equal such that no nation should be rich while others are poor. The
wealth of the richer (read: Western) nations should be spread out over all the
nations. No one nation should be a world
leader. All should sit at a round table
and vote equally on world issues.
Everybody, especially the richer, more powerful nations, should be
subject to the feelings and opinions of all the nations as a whole.
No political system or culture is considered better than
another, though richer, Western, and Christian nations, cultures, and religion
are inherently suspect, because they have been deemed oppressive, phobic, and
exploitative.
But what exactly is it about globalization that is so wrong?
There are at least three problems with globalization, any
one of which should be enough for any nation, at least those considered to be
wealthier, to reject it.
The first problem with globalization is that it links all
the economies of the nations together.
This has two results.
The first is that problems in other countries can now hurt our
economy. As I write this, there is talk
that a recession in China could cause a worldwide recession. When China was booming, nobody was saying how
wonderful that was for everybody else, but when they have problems, everybody
else can be affected.
We are told that we should be happy China is sending all
these cheap imports here, because they save us money at the store. That’s good only because incomes have gone
down here since we sent so many jobs overseas and flooded our country with more
workers than we have jobs for.
With globalization, when a country does well, it doesn’t
transfer into prosperity for anybody else.
But when a country does badly, everybody else, meaning richer nations, can
suffer. Even Greece’s near bankruptcy
sent American stocks downward.
But globalization also means that we are taking the control
of our economy out of our hands and placing it in the hands of other people, people
over whom we have no control. We can’t
tell China how to run their economy.
Globalization wants us to build or maintain our economy on
exports, which means that we are dependent on other nations prospering and buying
from us before we can prosper. So they
have to be doing well before we can, and if they don’t have the money to buy
our stuff, then we don’t make any money and we lose jobs.
Why would any nation want to depend on everyone else for
their own prosperity?
When the United States made all of its own stuff, we always
had plenty of jobs. The 1930s were an
exception, but that period of time was unique and subject to different
interpretations, whether you think the government, including President
Roosevelt, was a hero or the villain, whether you think they showed the
limitations of capitalism and the need for more government control or whether
the government itself hampered the economy.
Which leads us to the second problem with
globalization. With the rise of free
trade and globalization, things can be made anywhere, and they are pretty much
no longer made here. And, consequently,
we no longer have enough jobs for our people, which drives the need for higher
taxes and more government borrowing, because we now expect the government to take
care of everybody.
When we made all of our own stuff, we had plenty of jobs.
And as the population increased, so did the jobs, because the population
increase itself fueled the demand and growth of the economy.
When we had the jobs, there were very few government
assistance programs. Now that we don’t
have the jobs, we have all kinds of government assistance programs, and where
does the money come from to pay for them?
From those who are still working.
But their buying power is vastly reduced, because the government needs
more and more of their money to help the people who can no longer find jobs.
In fact, since the rise of globalization, the United States
has gone from being the richest nation in the world to arguably one of the
poorest. The point is arguable because
of all the material things that everybody seems to have, but the federal
government (that’s all of us) is $18 trillion in debt, the states are another
$4 trillion in debt, and average household debt is over $7000, not including
mortgages. And these debts are increasing,
not diminishing.
The third problem with globalization is that it is like
adding another 2 billion people to the workforce. A surplus of labor only works to drive down
worker’s wages and benefits. You can
always find somebody who will do the work for less. This drives jobs out of the wealthier nations
and sends them to the poorer.
Does this help the poorer nations? Not really.
They are poor because of the economic structure of their country. In about a hundred years after our nation’s
founding, the United States became the world’s leading economy. It surpassed nations that had existed for
thousands of years. People will argue about
the reasons, trying to isolate that one leading factor: was it capitalism, the
right to private property, the Protestant work ethic?
But the point is that the movement of a company or even an
industry to another country will not turn that country from a poor one to a
rich one. It just dilutes the wealth of
the rich nations and spreads it out all over the world, so richer nations become
poorer, the poor stay poor, and all the nations become more equal, equally
poor.
Prior to 1916 there was no income tax in our country, so
taxes on imports were the primary means of financing our federal government. During
the Great Depression, many argued for not taxing imports, because we sold far
more in exports than we bought in imports, and they were afraid that countries
taxing our imports would hurt our economy even further. But there was never a question of our
companies moving overseas and then shipping their goods back to us.
Globalization wants you to think that putting your own
country first over other countries is selfish.
They will use such terms as nationalism and protectionism as disparaging
terms to shame compliance with their agenda.
The argument is also framed as greedy corporations wanting protection
from foreign competitors, resulting in consumers paying higher prices to
benefit that corporation.
The fact is that our government needs money to provide
necessary services. The government has
no money of its own. The money has to
come from somewhere. When we don’t tax
imports, then we have to tax our own people more. When we tax imports, we can tax our own
people less.
Why is taxing imports preferable to taxing our own
people? Imports compete directly for
American jobs. So whatever we save on
cheaper imports from not taxing them, we pay for in lost jobs and higher
taxes. So ultimately it costs us more
when we don’t tax imports.
Growing up, we always had access to foreign made goods. We usually paid a little more for them, but
it was often considered worth it because they were either unique or thought to
be of better quality. But it was never
our companies sending our own stuff back to us.
But just as families put their needs over that of their
neighbors, so countries need to put their needs over that of their
neighbors. Each family is a unit of
society motivated by love and responsibility.
It is also the largest unit of society that individuals can actually
control, so to speak. I can’t control
what goes on in my neighbor’s house, just as we cannot control what goes on in
another country.
If we take care of our country first, like we take care of
our families first, and other countries take care of their countries like they
take care of their own families, we will all do our best for our own. We have always helped other countries, but it
is the difference between giving them a fish or teaching them how to fish. The first has a limited impact, but the
latter an unlimited impact. You don’t
give them our jobs; you show them how to create their own.
