The Dark Side of Globalization: Why Seattle's 1999 Protesters Were Right

[xchrom]

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/01/the-dark-side-of-globalization-why-seattles-1999-protesters-were-right/282831/



***SNIP


The Dark Side of Globalization
The clearest example is competition from foreign workers, which really has slammed the American working class. Economists David Autor, David Dorn, and Gordon Hanson did very careful empirical work and found that competition from China lowered wages and increased unemployment for American workers who were in competition with Chinese imports. Economists Michael Elsby, Bart Hobijn, and Aysegul Sahin found that competition from developing countries—not the decline of unions or the rise of automation—has been responsible for the bulk of the recent decline in labor’s share of income in the United States.

Chinese imports have lowered prices for consumers and raised the income of capital owners, but those benefits are either spread very thinly over a large number of people, or concentrated among the rich. The American workers who have been hurt by globalization have been hurt very badly, and America has no system in place to compensate them for that loss. China’s accession to the WTO in 2000, following the 1999 meeting, accelerated its rise as an export powerhouse.

Next, take unsafe imports. The scary truth is that we don’t even really know how much of a problem this is. But here’s what we do know: Food imports from China have skyrocketed, and the FDA has had trouble keeping up with the swarm of possible dangers. Although the U.S. and China have worked to improve safety standards for imported toys, Chinese toys still contain large amounts of heavy metals, including lead. If childhood-lead exposure really does lead to violent crime, it suggests Seattle protesters warned us of a considerable danger.

How about environmental destruction? The “race to the bottom” theory is that by allowing rich-country companies to invest freely in countries that don’t protect the environment, globalization forces rich countries to lower their environmental standards as well. That theory doesn’t seem to have a lot of support in the data; economists have generally found little effect of globalization on pollution in the U.S. itself. But globalization does seem to export pollution to developing countries. For many types of pollution, the burden falls on our trade partners: Chinese people are literally choking to death by coal smoke, much of which is burned by heavy industry that's expanded since 1999.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

1. I saw a tremendous video at Tate Modern about it

Right at the street level--from protesters' points of view. It was powerful.

[BlueStreak]

2. And what were the media talkng about in 1999?

The article writes, "Almost everything the Seattle protesters have warned us about has come to pass, much of it a direct result of the WTO’s actions in 2000."

What was the dominant news story while all of this real destruction was happening?

Y2K. Yes, instead of talking about the things that really would destroy millions of lives, the media fixated like a laser beam on the fake, manufactured "crisis" of "Y2K".

Just more of the Shock Doctrine at work. These guys don't have a complicated play book. This one play works so well, they just keep running it over and over. Works like a champ every time.

[PowerToThePeople]

3. 1999, the last year I feel we had a chance.

I still keep going, but I truly feel it is all for naught at this point. '99 was the last chance we had. 2000 Selection and all that followed killed the Country I had grown up to believe in. The huge protests of Bu$HCo, Cindy Sheehan's, etc were the dieing screams of civilization here. We are in Zombie mode now, just a walking corpse.

[L0oniX]

4. Miami WTO protest ...woman shot with rubber bullit in the eye ...cops caught on cam laughing.

http://www.copwatch.org/Policeriots.html

[Zorra]

5. I was there, and we were right, and we were trying to wake up the world to

the creeping injustice and death from the disease of globalization.

http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/mexico/ezln/1997/jigsaw.html

[Martin Eden]

6. K&R for an Important Article n/t

[Chrom]

7. Protesters were right, no one admits it or thanks them

Instead the government attempts to outsource more jobs,

but this time they must negotiate in secret because we were right last time and facts have proven all of their arguments to be self serving lies.

[blackspade]

8. While the protesters were right

The thrust of the argument in the article is not.
The last two paragraphs sum up the pro-capitalism mantra 'It's flawed but it works.'

Whether you think globalization’s various effects are worth worrying about depends on how much you care about people in other countries. China is choking under hellish smog, but it has also managed to pull literally hundreds of millions of people out of abject poverty. U.S. inequality is up since Seattle, but global inequality has declined. The industrialization of China and (to a lesser degree) India has been the biggest and most effective anti-poverty program the world has ever seen. Capitalism has its flaws, but it works.

The Seattle protesters didn't quite foresee the escape of hundreds of millions of Chinese and Indian and other people from indigence. But they were right: a WTO-led globalization could have been implemented a lot better. If I could go back in time, I would make the WTO heed the concerns of the Seattle protesters. They were not silly. They were right.

And this little tidbit is total crap:

In the U.S., labor protections have not noticeably eroded, meaning that any negative effect of globalization on worker protections is likely felt by workers elsewhere.

See this news story from just today:
'A court just gutted your right to sue your boss'
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024287633

and this:
Orr freezes pensions for Detroit workers, ends cost-of-living adjustments
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014690057