Globalization, Labor Supply, Economic Policies in the United States, Free Trade, U.S. Politics & Government - 1992-2001
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Overview
A leading economic journalist explains why Washington's responses to globalization have created a global worker surplus that undermines both American workers and those in developing nations.As evidenced by the WTO riots in Seattle in December 1999, there is a volatile debate among Americans over how the new world economy affects our standards of living and our country's chances for future prosperity. With giant multinational companies based in the U.S. and other wealthy countries transferring ever more factories and labs to poorer countries, the fear is that slave-wage workers overseas are undermining the bargaining power of labor in the industrialized world.
As evidenced by the WTO riots in Seattle in December 1999, there is a volatile debate among Americans over how the new world economy affects our standards of living and our country's chances for future prosperity. With giant multinational companies based in the U.S. and other wealthy countries transferring ever more factories and labs to poorer countries, the fear is that slave-wage workers overseas are undermining the bargaining power of labor in the industrialized world.
In this book Alan Tonelson explains how a competition has emerged in which countries with the weakest workplace safety laws, the lowest taxes, and the toughest unionization laws win investment from American and European countries. Tonelson argues that this "race to the bottom" of labor standards has been the driving force behind the decline of American living standards for the past quarter century, and, as we have already begun to see, will cause even bigger problems for the worldwide economy as it continues.
Tonelson analyzes how the entry of such population giants as China, India, and Brazil into the global market have added fuel to the eroding labor standards. He reveals how an ever larger share of the foreign competition faced by American laborers is hitting not just fields such as apparel and toys, but many of America's highest wage industries such as aerospace and software. And he describes how the reeducation and retraining programs that political leaders say is the remedy to the problem will do nothing to help most Americans cope with competition from the global workforce.
A lively, provocative guide to the new global economy, The Race to the Bottom fills the gap of hard evidence in readable form in the globalization debate, providing the guidebook that American workers have been waiting for, and the indictment that our economic and policy establishments have been dreading.
Editorials
David Gartner
The Race to the Bottom fails to examine any positive aspects of globalization, it is provocative and should lead to further debate about how we should engage the global economy.— New York Times Book Review
New York Times
...provocative and should lead to further debate about how we should engage the global economy.Chronicles
...[an] articulate, passionate, yet thoughtful book.New Republic
[Alan Tonelson is] probably the most significant economist spreading the nationalist gospel.Denver Post
In The Race to the Bottom Alan Tonelson does a first-rate job of familiarizing us with the facts that just don't fit the dogma.Wilson Quarterly
A well-informed and often witty assault.Paul Magnusson
Amidst America's growing infatuation with globalization, Alan Tonelson is one of the few articulate voices asking the hard questions and pointing out the pitfalls.— BusinessWeek
Inside Business
...all of us need to get informed, and The Race to the Bottom is certainly a good place to start.Washington Post BookWorld
At a time when new economy cheerleading continues to drift from solid data and cogent argument, Tonelson's book provides a welcome voice of reasoned dissent.Publishers Weekly -
Current United States government policy may celebrate the economic benefits of globalization, but Tonelson, a policy analyst with the private U.S. Business and Industry Council, counters with a skeptical "Show me the money!" on behalf of the U.S. worker. Burrowing into statistics on employment patterns and wage trends in industries like automobiles, household appliances and textiles, Tonelson makes a forceful and engaging argument that globalization, with its attendant rush by multinational corporations to cheaper sources of labor, has been partially responsible for what he sees as a shift from high-wage to low-wage industries in the U.S. (e.g., an Economic Policy Institute study shows that between 1973 and 1998, real hourly wages fell for the bottom 60% of the U.S. workforce). In response to multinational corporations crowing that globalization has increased U.S. exports to emerging markets, Tonelson urges a closer examination of the patterns of trade. He points out that U.S. exports to Third World countries are dominated by manufacturing and intermediate goods that are used to build the industrial capacity that then produces goods for direct export to the United States. The net result--lost jobs, lost factories and a growing U.S. trade deficit--lead Tonelson to question whether the current U.S. policy is anything but de facto foreign aid at the expense of U.S. workers. Though the uninspired jacket belies Tonelson's lively prose, readers of sophisticated financial journalism will appreciate this well-researched and politically savvy treatise, which goes beyond criticism to propose thoughtful economic alternatives that Tonelson hopes will enable expanded free trade without imposing more burdens on American labor. (Nov.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.Booknews
As evidenced by the WTO riots in Seattle in December of 1999, the public holds serious concerns about the effects of the new-world economy. Rightly so, argues Tonelson, a research fellow at the US Business and Industry Council. With extensive evidence, and in language designed for the popular audience, he demonstrates that the result of intense global competition is a marked decline in the standard of living for most citizens as jobs are exported to those countries with not only the lowest taxes, but also the weakest workplace safety laws and toughest unionization laws. The jobs disappearing overseas, he shows, are not just those in manual labor but increasingly highly skilled jobs in aerospace and software design. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)Book Details
Published
November 1, 2000
Publisher
Boulder, Colo. : Westview Press, 2000.
Pages
240
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9780813368177