Reply #98: I don't draw the same conclusion.

[Atypical Liberal]

From one of your links:

"It was hoped that this would result in an increase in wages for low-skilled labour or improved working conditions, including by means of an increase in the number of formal sector jobs for low-skilled workers. Evidence suggests, however, that the skill premium has increased both in developed and in emerging economies, making low-skilled workers (relatively) worse off," the report says. The ever shifting dynamic of globalization has caused demand for more highly skilled workers, leaving laborers in poverty or stuck in informal workplaces."


In other words, globalization IS opening up opportunities for skilled labor in other countries. And I know this is true. In India, for example, call centers and data centers provided lots of upward mobility for otherwise low-paid workers with low standards of living. So much so that as their wages rose there was a secondary move of these kinds of jobs OUT of India to other, lower-cost countries, though India's IT sector is still growing.

Also, I used to import and re-sell craft products from a manufacturer in India. These craftsman are benefiting from globalization by having income that they would not otherwise have.

I have no doubt that people with no job skills are going to have a hard go of it in the modern world no matter where they live, and, being underdeveloped countries, GETTING job skills is hard, and the consequences of not having them will be very harsh since there are no social safety nets where they live. In other words, if all you can do is pitch a shovel life is going to continue to be harsh for people in developing nations for some time. They are, after all, still "developing" nations, many comparable to life here in the USA 100+ years ago.

But it is simply inconceivable that all the money we are paying to the workers in developing nations is not improving their lot in life, to the detriment of workers in developed nations.