Workers See Costs, Not Benefits, to Global Trade
40 years old here, and I have seen much more pain than benefit over the last 30 years. Early in my youth I was exposed to libertarianism, and I was taken in - it sounded so simple and logical and effective.  But, over time I saw the effects of globalization, free trade, and deregulation. They&#x27;ve been selling us, the masses, on it for 40 years. Why haven&#x27;t salaries and demand for jobs increased? They always say it&#x27;s because of the existing tariffs, regulations, unions, etc. &#x27;Trust us,&#x27; they say, &#x27;just a little bit longer - more deregulation and free trade, and it will happen.  Trust us.&#x27;  I&#x27;ve literally heard that same claim for as long I can remember.<p>Maybe I&#x27;m a minority. I&#x27;m the first college educated person in my family (most with &#x27;gifted&#x27; level IQs - like that matters!).  The rest were working class. Then, I&#x27;ve seen them slowly lose jobs, fall below the poverty line. Now, I make a good salary, and I have to send money back to my family because they&#x27;re unable to find jobs, pay for transportation, pay for education or health care or housing.  Luckily, they are still able to pay for food!  It&#x27;s like I&#x27;m an immigrant in my own country, sending money back to the old country. Just weird.<p>I am very happy that we have been able to raise standards of living for many who had been earning less than a dollar a day. But, this has come at the expense of the working and middle class in many &#x27;rich&#x27; countries.  There were and are much better ways to achieve the same goal.  Instead of pressuring the benefiting countries to migrate to democracy and rule of law, we instead caved into our primal demand for low-cost junk. (Yay! $5 t-shirts.  Thank you, Stefan Persson) Now, we have autocratic and corrupt countries with as much leverage as we used to have.<p>The capitalists have been selling us Powerball tickets for 40 years, and we keep lining up to buy them.