Must-Read: Answer: we don't. We never have. The question of "how do we deal with the bad effects of policies to enrich the country and the world as a whole by increasing trade?" have always been met by: "we reject burial insurance; we don't want it". The question of "how do we deal with the bad effects of technological transformation?" have always been met by: "it's foreigners fault; we blame them"--taking, as Pascal Lamy says, the finger of globalization for the moon of market capitalism. The real question is: How to deal with market capitalism's transformation of land, labor, and finance into "commodities"--and thus of their communities, their income levels, and their industries into things that must pass a market profitability test--and people's Polanyian discovery that what they thought were rights to community prosperity, income levels, and occupations are not recognized because they are not secured by property rights? That question is never engaged with--because foreigners (or immigrants) are there to be blamed for eveything that goes wrong:
Pedro de Costa: After the US elections, how do we return to a constructive debate about trade?: "Governments need to get serious about the very real possibility that employment trends... driven by technology and robotics may happen more quickly than public policy can adapt...
...Economic policymakers need to be hard at work laying the groundwork for large-scale future job creation needed to absorb workers affected by changing industries.... Unions need to be more honest with their members about the benefits of trade and the true culprits of weak employment and low wages: underlying economic weakness.... NAFTA didn’t kill U.S. manufacturing, despite so much noise to the contrary. China’s entry into the World Trade Organization did take a toll on American manufacturing jobs, but they also allowed many US firms to remain competitive and countless US consumers to pay lower prices.... Let’s hope the shift toward a more constructive discussion can happen quickly after the election hubbub is over...
