Is globalization undermining social protections for workers in developed countries?
In a 1996 article in Foreign Affairs, Professor Ethan B. Kapstein argues that the global economy is creating millions of disaffected workers suffering from inequality, unemployment, and poverty. He notes that rapid technological change and heightening international competition are fraying the job markets of the major industrialized countries. The spread of the dogma of restrictive fiscal policy is undermining the bargain struck with workers in every industrial country. States are basically telling their workers that they can no longer afford the postwar deal which provided social welfare and comprehensive unemployment insurance. Others suggest that globalization has played much a smaller role in the decreasing social protections and influence of organized labor in many industrialized countries. They note that the bulk of trade is between countries where wages are already high. In the United States, many social and labor protections originated in the New Deal era as a response to more r
