As if we didn't know

A little over ten years ago I wrote to a friend about the boom-bust cycle of globalization:

Consider Texas, whose "boom towns" of the '70s became the empty husks of the '80s; consider Korea, whose "economic miracle" of the '80s, built on the infusion of transnational capital in search of low-wage labor, is turning sour as corporations move on to the Philippines in search of even lower-wage labor.

(A longer excerpt from the original is here.)

Amid all the self-congratulatory prose of the corporate press about the glories of the free market (which, to hear them tell it, brings peace, prosperity, and a cure for the common cold) the realization has slowly emerged that

[g]lobalisation has turned into a "race to the bottom", where jobs go to places with the cheapest workers and least onerous workers' rights,

says the BBC for January 21. And as trade unionists at the World Economic Forum now going on in Davos, Switzerland pointed out, it's not just the industrialized nations whose workers are being hurt. Mexico has seen 200,000 jobs move to China and even Bangladesh is facing major job losses - up to one million - in its textile industry.

"Globalisation without rules does not work", said Sharan Burrow of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. ...

And it is not just trade unionists that are getting worried.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum, Morgan Stanley chief economist Stephen Roach drew attention to the phenomenon of "global labour arbitrage", where what were high-wage jobs in developed world were transformed into low-wage jobs in the developing world.

This, he said, was hitting not just manufacturing, but service industries like banking as well.

Better learn how to split wood, weave, and skin a squirrel. They may be the skills most in demand soon enough.