> >I don't know what is exactly this "race to the bottom" that the Left is
> >talking about. Is this absolute immiseration of working people thesis?
>
> It's a staple of the antiglobalization literature, at least in the
> U.S. and other high-income countries: nations and regions compete
> against each other to see who can offer the most attractive deal to
> hypermobile capital, resulting in markdowns in wages and
> environmental/social standards.
If you allow me sweeping generalisations about Asia, I would say that regions more integrated globally have better living standards. Enronmental standards are a different matter altogether. More globalised regions are in bad shape in terms of environmental standards.
There are, of course, countries like Iraq and Afghanistan that have suffered for obvious reasons. After Asian crisis, sectors of Indonesian society must have experienced sharp decline in the living standards, but I don't have precise numbers.
Ulhas