Without Globalization, The American Middle Class Would Languish: New at Reason

Fifteen years ago it was hippies and greens who opposed globalization as a rapacious force that preys on the world’s poor and ravages the planet—and conservatives, alleged believers in commerce and competition, who defended it. But now the anti-globalization mantle has been picked up by smart-set conservatives who blame it for decimating the American middleclass through wage and job competition by cheap foreign labor and goods. Some of them are even going so far as to urge their fellow conservatives to embrace a soft nationalism that pares back America’s reliance on trade and immigration in order to counter Trump’s “America First” hard nationalism.

But, notes Reason Foundation Senior Analyst Shikha Dalmia, they are wrong. America’s middle class has experienced some rather horrendous exogenous economic shocks from terrorism to a financial meltdown to eight years of the Obama presidency. Yet the worst thing that has happened to it is that it is no worse off than before. There is no economy in the world—now or ever—that has endured so much and emerged so unscathed, she points out. And the reason is that globalization has generated innovations and cost-savings that have allowed Americans to maintain their quality of life and avoid economic catastrophe.

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