>Doug said:
>
>>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.
>
>
>>Doug
>
>Does this happen?
>
>(I'm wildly guessing you have doubts about it, considering the
>hesitancy you've voiced about globalization in general.)
Well yeah, I doubt it's happening in so simple a way. Capital isn't as mobile as the model says, and, on average, world incomes are rising. There are important exceptions - mainly Africa, which is in dire shape, but more because it's excluded from the circuits of investment than because it's included. Inequality is increasing in many parts of the world - and by some measures across the entire human population (but not by all measures). The U.S. was about the only rich country where real wages fell over a sustained period (1973-95), but they've been rising for the last 7 years. China and India have seen rising incomes, and they're a third of the world population. Some Latin Americans have taken big hits, but not all. So I'd say that the "race to the bottom" is a compelling turn of phrase, but not an accurate description of what's been going on.
Doug