Just to take a slightly different angle on why this column is drivel, let' us try applying the "Prisoner's Dilemma" problem from game theory to globalization.
--Two suspects are arrested by the police. The police have insufficient evidence for a conviction, and, having separated both prisoners, visit each of them to offer the same deal: if one testifies ("defects") for the prosecution against the other and the other remains silent, the betrayer goes free and the silent accomplice receives the full 10-year sentence. If both remain silent, both prisoners are sentenced to only six months in jail for a minor charge. If each betrays the other, each receives a five-year sentence. Each prisoner must make the choice of whether to betray the other or to remain silent. Each one is assured that the other would not know about the betrayal before the end of the investigation. How should the prisoners act?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma
What this problem illustrates is that courses of action that would be optimal if all parties are 'altruistic' --e.g. honest --are the most sub-optimal when one pary is dishonest.
This is pretty much the case with globalization in 1st world countries. The economic elite running companies has derived considerable benefit from globalization. If some reliable mechanism of sharing had been supported, it is possible that it would have benefitted the majority of citizens in these countries, and there would be widespread support gloabalization.
However, certainly in the US, there has been virtually no sharing of benefits. (median income has declined, while health care and education costs have increased rapidly).
Consequently, ordinary citizens find themselves in the position of the party in the prisoner's dilemma. Given that they believe the economic elite to be dishonest, it is not in their interest to support a course which WOULD be optimal if the benefits had been shared --e.g., the financial elite had operated on the square.
Noe Mr. Samuelson, and the elite, want to bemoan the fact that they can no longer get support for what WOULD have been the optimal course, because the population, with just cause, distrusts them.
Samuelson thinks this is tragic. I see it as a sign that the citizens' brain cells are beginning to operate again, and that they can apply elementary logical conclusions to their lives.
Rx for Global Poverty
Why globalization can enrich everyone.
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What's the world's greatest moral challenge, as judged by its capacity to inflict human tragedy? It is not, I think, global warming, whose effects -- if they become as grim as predicted -- will occur over many years and provide societies time to adapt. A case can be made for preventing nuclear proliferation, which threatens untold deaths and a collapse of the world economy. But the most urgent present moral challenge, I submit, is the most obvious: global poverty.
There are roughly 6 billion people on the planet; in 2004, perhaps 2.5 billion survived on $2 a day or less, says the World Bank. By 2050, the world may have 3 billion more people; many will be similarly impoverished. What's baffling and frustrating about extreme poverty is that much of the world has eliminated it. In 1800, almost everyone was desperately poor. But the developed world has essentially abolished starvation, homelessness and material deprivation.
The solution to being poor is getting rich. It's economic growth. We know this. The mystery is why all societies have not adopted the obvious remedies. Just recently, the 21-member Commission on Growth and Development -- including two Nobel-prize winning economists, former prime ministers of South Korea and Peru, and a former president of Mexico -- examined the puzzle.
Since 1950, the panel found, 13 economies have grown at an average annual rate of 7 percent for at least 25 years. These were: Botswana, Brazil, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Malta, Oman, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand. Some gains are astonishing. From 1960 to 2005, per capita income in South Korea rose from $1,100 to $13,200. Other societies started from such low levels that even rapid economic growth, combined with larger populations, left sizable poverty. In 2005, Indonesia's per capita income averaged just $900, up from $200 in 1966.
Still, all these economies had advanced substantially. The panel identified five common elements of success:
- Openness to global trade and, usually, an eagerness to attract foreign investment.
- Political stability and "capable" governments "committed" to economic growth, though not necessarily democracy (China, South Korea and Indonesia all grew with authoritarian regimes).
- High rates of saving and investment, usually at least 25 percent of national income.
- Economic stability, keeping government budgets and inflation under control and avoiding a broad collapse in production.
- A willingness to "let markets allocate resources," meaning that governments didn't try to run industry.
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