Speed Bump at the Border

With Democrats victorious in the November mid-term elections, a disgruntled middle class expects some immediate protections on jobs, wages as well as health and retirement benefits. But the Democratic Party is divided about how to deliver economic benefits to workers: One camp embraces the economic benefits of globalization, and another group tends toward protectionism and controls on trade, outsourcing and immigration. Attacks on immigration, however, might be perceived as an attack on one equalizing force of globalization, according to some researchers, and just another way to widen the income gap between rich and poor countries as well as the rich and poor within countries. Another target for the Democrats are CEOs who collect immense salaries but resist sharing profits with productive work forces – in the US or factories abroad. Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts has proposed that Democratic leaders support free trade and eased regulations if companies distribute profits by paying equitable wages across-the-board. “The forces of international competition have proved more powerful than any government, and advocates of aggressive policies to constrain them face a porous, borderless and now highly electronic international economy,” argues Columbia University professor Thomas Edsall in “The New York Times.” The temptation to accumulate wealth – in a personal bank account, firm or nation – is greater than the call for social or global equity. – YaleGlobal