Summary:
Peter Mandelson defending globalisation in response to the protectionist rhetoric heard during the presidential primaries. Feeling is that globalisation is out of countrol, no longer something we do but something that is done to us. But open markets and economic integration are far the best tool we have for increasing global economic welfare. "Only stable, cooperating states can manage the coming squeeze on resources."Globalisation and active welfare states are not incompatible. "Protective states do not have to be protectionist ones." (Published: 09/06/08)
Notes:
- The Atlantic world is no longer the centre of the economic world, because the economic world no longer has a centre.
- many Americans see global economic change in zero-sum terms
- as suggested by the protectionist and anti-trade rhetoric evident in the presidential primaries
- Economic inequality is reduced between countries, but widens within our own societies.
- Globalisation is no longer something we do, it is something that others do to us.
- "Nobody would disagree that globalisation has its dark side. But the open markets and economic integration that drive it are still by far the best tool we have for increasing global economic welfare. That is an essential contribution to global stability. Only stable, cooperating states can manage the coming squeeze on resources."
- US and Europe should recognise that in an interdependent world, they have nothing to gain from a stalling of growth in the developing world
- rather than worry about a relative decline in their economic weight, or retreat from international engagement
- should focus on renewing the global institutions needed to hold this new mix of states together through difficult debates on climate change, energy security and trade
- have to adapt these institutions - the UN, the WTO, the IMF - to give the emerging economies a chance not just to exercise their rights, but to assume their responsibilities.
- at the moment when we most need the tools of internationalism, our own politics has begun pushing in the other direction
- economic nationalism is the symptom of a deeper problem.
- we can't shape globalisation without tackling the causes of protectionism.
- means tackling our own economic insecurity and inequality.
- entrenched political myth that globalisation and active welfare states are incompatible
- OECD data for the last 20 years: strong welfare states have equipped countries for globalisation much better than weak ones.
- states that have encouraged labour market flexibility, high levels of education and retraining, and helped women and older people stay in the workforce
- Progressives in the US and Europe need to revive the New Deal case for governments that help people engage with open economies, rather than leave them exposed
- Protective states do not have to be protectionist ones.
- Gordon Brown has never erred in rejecting the false comforts of populism and setting out a positive politics of globalisation
- sees globalisation as part of the solution rather than part of the problem
- world needs to hear the same message from President Obama or McCain
