A Labor Perspective on Globalization

This chapter presents a labor perspective on globalization. The main features of such a perspective are: (1) Globalization is hurting many working families and increasing social divisions by raising income inequality; (2) The debate over the size of net gains or losses from globalization misses the point. Nor is it an issue of stopping globalization. Instead, the issue is that globalization is being wrongly constructed. (3) Globalization alone does not explain what has been happening to growth and income distribution, and globalization should not be looked at in isolation. Instead, globalization should be seen as a core element of the neoliberal economic paradigm that has been implemented post-1980. That means the debate over globalization is ultimately about changing the economic paradigm.