give me anti-globalization arguments!

[GePap]

I have to agree with the free borders issue.
Any system in which goods and capital can move freely but labor can't simply can't produce the global benefits it claims.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Sava
too obvious!

Back in the good all days, one could start a flamewar here by saying "God shags Peter on fridays".

[child of Thor]

does anyone else get fed up trying to not buy stuff from china?
This is an anti-globalization arguement of sorts
not that i have anything against china in particular, but it just gets a bit of a pain sometimes trying to address any mis-balances at the consumer end. I do pay more for local produce when i can, but clothes+computers/consoles etc all seem to be from china these days

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Bosh

Free riding and negative externalities are basically two sides of the same coin, in both cases benefits and costs mismatch in a way that results in an inefficient economic arraignement. You can have these problems in any kind of economic system...

Yep. If someone is suffering from a negative externality, chances are someone else is free riding.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Agathon


The main argument is obvious. Most prosperous societies regulate their markets to ensure that they don't produce too many undesirable goods (pollution, unsafe working environments, poverty, etc.). The enforcement mechanism is democratic: corporations would love to pollute more (since anti-pollution measures cost them money), but the voting public doesn't stand for them since they are the ones that end up on the receiving end of the pollution (so do the owners of the corporation, but the increased profits from polluting are more attractive to them - otherwise they wouldn't do it).

In other words, markets must be regulated to prevent market failures and what economists call free riding (like when you have to breathe polluted air so that GM can make more money – you absorb the cost of a transaction to which you did not consent).

Market fundamentalists oppose this because they deny that market failure exists (for the most part or at all). However, they are simply wrong – anyone can point to thousands of examples of market failures in the real world.

The solution is again obvious. Since markets are now more global than ever, corresponding global regulation is needed. The dispute is over the regulations.

Business wants the regulations to enforce contracts and provide compensation for decisions that governments make that cost businesses money. Surprisingly, there isn't really anything wrong with that - it means that people can invest with more confidence.

The problem is that business doesn't want all the other pesky regulations to which we have become accustomed: things like workplace safety, welfare safety nets, and pollution controls - the sort of regulations that cost businesses money, but benefit everyone by compelling businesses to pay the full cost of their impact on society.

(They also do not recognize that developing countries cannot support a radical market economy – most sensible people realize that many countries require a period of protectionism to build up the necessary institutions and practices that will allow a market economy to benefit their citizens.)

Without the second sort of regulations, markets would become a global menace as they would be within countries if they were not regulated.

The "anti-globalization" people are complaining because business, due to its wealth and political connections, is able to secure a regulatory framework that benefits it over the common good. They would rather that the framework for globalization was designed to benefit everyone, and not just business interests. In this respect, their case is unanswerable. The problem is that the media focuses on the extreme radical wing of the movement and this drowns out the real issue.

AGGIE PWNS!

[chequita guevara]

No, he just expounded on my main points. Anyway, whom is he pwning? No one, yet, has stood up for globalism as Freidman has.

[Sava]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
No, he just expounded on my main points.

which you stole from me

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Sava
which you stole from me

Well, you shouldn't have left them lying around outside where anyone could take them. I thought you threw them away.

[Sava]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


Well, you shouldn't have left them lying around outside where anyone could take them. I thought you threw them away.

[chequita guevara]

Too late to help Kuci's paper, but on-topic nonetheless. Odin should probably give it a read too.

http://www.counterpunch.com/roberts09052005.html

[:) Smiley]

which you stole from me

collectivization

[BeBMan]

"Property is Theft"

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Too late to help Kuci's paper, but on-topic nonetheless. Odin should probably give it a read too.

http://www.counterpunch.com/roberts09052005.html

... that linked article called LBJ a libertarian.

[Master Zen]

Economic science no longer exists in America. Its place has been taken by emotional commitments to dogmas.

I has never existed. Not in the US, not anywhere. Economic policy is driven far more by ideology than practicality and common sense.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Communist countries pollute too, is that a communist failure?

That's not the point.

The point is when a pollutor doesn't have to bear the full cost of cleaning it up, he has caused a negative externality - the society is now stuck with some of this cost. IOW, he's having a free ride (for not needing to pay the full cost).

However, in a communist country, such a pollutor is the society itself, with all those state owned industries and such, so there is no negative externality here.