On the subject of globalization, I may actually be to the right of Pat Buchanan.

When I look at globalization, I see a process whereby jobs go wherever in the world people can be paid the least to perform them. Call me backward if you will, but somehow I can’t get excited about putting Americans in a “race to the bottom” with the most desperate and exploited people on earth.

Granted, this can make products cheaper to buy. But I don’t view providing cheaper consumer products as the be-all and end-all of society. Consequently, I’m unable to get misty-eyed about the price of cell phones dropping by $1.99 in a world where my neighbors and I can’t buy them anyway, because all our jobs have been eliminated.

Another odd feature of globalization is that although it portends an ominous job drain away from the affluent West, it doesn’t seem to be all that popular in the Third World, either. In fact, I can scarcely open a newspaper these days without reading about another group of people in some remote reach of the world who are getting clobbered by globalization, as what were once significant industries for them--whole ways of life, actually--suddenly dry up and blow away. Sometimes I wonder who in the world is actually benefiting from globalization. 

If globalization is reducing economic “biodiversity” and self-sufficiency all over the world, while concentrating economic life in the hands of an ever-dwindling number of giant monoliths, how can this be healthy?

If it is not, then how can I or anybody else (except, of course, the CEOs of the surviving companies) be expected to exult in it?