Comment by eric_b | Hacker News Reader

Comment by eric_b | Hacker News Reader

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Unpopular opinions ahead:

As far as I can tell, "globalism" is the biggest cause of inequality. It's not about QE or easy monetary policy. It's about the fact that I don't have to pay a guy next door high wages to have something done. I can pay someone in a developing nation 10x less to do the same thing. Doing this at scale is what got us in to this mess.

Some argue that globalism was inevitable, others that there is some shadowy group pushing an agenda. But whatever you believe, one outcome of globalization (and there are positives as well) but one negative outcome is income inequality.

What bugs me about this article is that these people think they can solve inequality with MORE globalism ("global" taxes, regulating international companies etc). I don't think doubling down on it is going to fix anything.

You know how you fix capitalism? You break apart the huge companies. You incentivize smaller companies (with progressive corporate income taxes and other things). Competition will yield lower prices and more innovation.

It might increase income inequality in your country, but does it do so globally? I mean, that person in a developing nation will still likely get way more money than they would have from local work. So it serves as wealth transfer from developed to developing countries.

Now, large corporations are taking and pocketing a large part of that transferred wealth, effectively gouging it back (and making it even more concentrated in their home countries in the process). And why can they do that? Because, while capital and goods can flow across borders mostly unrestricted, labor is constrained by immigration restrictions. Chinese workers don't get direct access to the US market - no, they have to work for transnationals that will pay them slightly better than local wage, and then sell the product of their labor for as much as they can in countries where wages (and hence prices) are much higher.

>It might increase income inequality in your country, but does it do so globally?

I think locality matters for income inequality. The poor kid in Bangladesh, really doesn't care that someone owns a $100 Million apartment in Manhattan. However, if you are the working poor in NYC struggling to make ends meet, you are likely to feel something viscerally (maybe a tiny amount) when you go past those apartments.

People tend to compare and judge locally. Who you see, who you interact with on a daily basis matter far more than some theoretical person 1000's of miles away.

Local inequality matters more than global inequality because the cost of living has an equalizing effect. When a large portion of a population can no longer afford to live in their own country it's a big problem for society.

> It might increase income inequality in your country, but does it do so globally?

Yes, neoliberal globalism increases inequality in the distribution of wealth between individuals within developed states, and those in developing states, and globally. It also increases aggregate inequality between countries, particularly between (on the high side) countries whose comparative advantage lies in finished goods and services and those whose comparative advantage lies in extractive industries (other than those subject to effective cartel control, but that tends not to be long-term stable.)

OTOH, it tends to reduce extreme absolute poverty.

Yes the globalists want to turn America into a shithole country. Thus how obvious why populist leaders get elected. Was 2016 election a surprise to an avg Working class American? No.

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