Sharing the Wealth: Workers and the World Economy

Sharing the wealth is good for those poeple wanting to better understand globilization in fearly concise and easy-to read book. The book talks about what policies countries should try to be emphasing through trade policies and the effects of unions and government protections on the economy. It moves a way from a lot of the theoritical evidence like comparative advantage and focuses on actual data which can be some what different then what economic theory says.

Those seeing "globalization" as the promising "wave of the future" for a world economy should give this book their close and undivided attention. Contrary to the claims of globalization advocates, the "unending prosperity of a world market" may prove a hollow promise. Kapstein is no anti-globalization crusader, but he sees the fruits of the new economy as tainted, the structure threatened with built-in decay. The inequitable distribution of global wealth is widening. With the rich getting richer in this new environment, governments, who can implement controls to distribute the profits, are ignoring the populace at large. Policy making is being driven by controllers of mobile capital. Workers' wages and conditions are being driven steadily downward as nations strive to entice those investments across their borders. Kapstein doesn't see worker uprisings or international strife resulting from these conditions. He sees the potential collapse of the system with little or nothing foreseeable to replace it.Nearly half the book is taken up with a summary history of centuries of economic thinking. From Adam Smith through the formation of the British Empire, a form of global economy was building. Governments adhered to the "gold standard" a financial policy inherently restrictive to labour. Destroyed by World War I, the global economy based on the gold standard struggled for existence until the next conflict set the stage for emergence in a new form. Kapstein contends the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference laid the foundation for today's global market economy. Spurred by the Marshall Plan's stimulus from recovery there emerged a world trading programme. The "German and Japanese miracles" resulted along with America's economic dominance. A discordant note, not perceived at the time was Britain's insistence on a full employment element in the planning. Only the United States rejected this ideal, but the full impact of this new form of isolationism hasn't been perceived until now. Labour isn't described as particularly suppressed in this book, but workers have suffered from poorly considered or indifferent policies. The world conflicts of the 20th Century nearly led to more equitable attitudes toward labour by the victorious powers, but progress was blocked by the single biggest player in the game. The U.S. became the chief obstructer of achieving "full employment" policies during the era of recovery from World War II. With the U.S. being the biggest investor in the new world economy, it set the standards other nations had to follow in order to stay competitive. The result is a working environment in which the worker poverty level is set at one dollar per day. And the poorest people are workers. Kapstein asserts globalization is a political, not economic phenomenon. The old saw that government should "stay out of business" is clearly false since it is government policies that have allowed or encouraged the growth of a global economy. Gove

Every shift in economic systems has had a high cost in human misery. The enclosures in the British isles led many people to emigrate or to suffer long impoverishment. The industrial revolution killed, injured, and downgraded the quality of life for many in the beginning. The global business development of today is creating similar pressures on people who provide unskilled labor around the world. Essentially, there is a surplus of people without skills and a shortage of those with skills. As work shifts to lower and lower paid countries for unskilled labor, pay and employment fall in the better paid countries for this type of work. Professor Kapstein asks an important question, "What are the ways that the transition to a global economy can be made the most constructive?" I rate the book at five stars for having raised that question. I have not seen it raised elsewhere.He looks at the history of many countries to point out that economic dislocations when they have become too extreme in the past preceded political upheavals that had negative consequences for many (such as World War I and the rise of fascism and communism). He also points out that moving towards democratic capitalism does not automatically improve things, citing Russia as an example. His view is that companies and countries need to do more than they do today to create greater world markets and to develop them thoroughly. "This book has been written, then, in an effort to defend globalization from its enemies, while saving it from those of its adherents who fail to recognize the damage it is bringing to working people in its train." On the government side, he sees the need for a legal system and sanctity of property (something almost any 19th century English person would have applauded), education, and support for basic health (such as clean water and sanitation). He also points out that companies can learn from the best practices of establishing a global workforce and a global market to create more good in the process. Hardly anyone would argue with these points.What will offend some is that Professor Kapstein is obviously trying to get our attention by waving the joint flags of human misery and the risk of social upheaval in a way that academicians often do not do. My assumption is that he is aware that Americans will not realize how much more serious the potential for social unrest is viewed in many other countries, and wants to shake us out of our lethargy. In the process, he will annoy some people. My own research shows that enterprises that do the most to serve all of those they affect do prosper the most, so he did miss the opportunity to make a capitalistic argument here. I personally didn't mind his approach since it was very blatant, rather than a hidden bias. I think that his general perspective is well taken from my perspective also as someone who studied revolutions in college. In fact, I enjoyed his take on the hi