The World is Not Flat
There is increasing recognition by economists that people have to have a sense of identity in order to cooperate and prosper. For example, it makes sense for countries to subsidize their own movie industry. If Morocco subsidizes its film industry, it is probably not going to undermine Hollywood. Yet there is lots of pressure on Morocco to abandon those types of subsidies.
Aren't commercial values subordinate to democratic principles?
If you put to a vote the question of whether or not people dying of AIDS in Botswana should have access to the drugs that could help save their lives, 99 percent would probably support that. But we never had that choice. Yet there was no national debate on that issue. If you look at the problem in detail, the money saved by enforcing patents for the drug companies was supposed to go to conducting research for new diseases. But more is going to advertising and researching lifestyle drugs like hair replacement.
So, is the world flat?
Not only is the world not flat, but also there is growing inequality around the world, and there is a growing gap between the rich and the poor. The world is becoming less flat as that inequity grows. One way to think about globalization is simply the lowering of transport and communications costs. As we become more interdependent we need to solve together a whole host of problems. If the world is going to do it, we should do so in a way that reflects our fundamental values: democracy, fairness, respect for the individual, concern for the poor. Unfortunately, the way the United States has been exercising leadership in the area of globalization has not been consistent with those values.
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