Income Inequality and the Effects of Globalization - Learn Liberty

Professor Tyler Cowen tells how, globally, income inequality worldwide is on the decline. Thanks to globalization and free trade, the world is richer, and billions of people have escaped from poverty through the global economy. This is evidenced by the amazing growth of the economies in China and India.

When we talk about income inequality in America, we mustn’t forget that, worldwide, globalization and free trade are the forces that have the potential to eliminate income inequality and bring billions out of poverty.

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[FourthRoot]

While it certainly appears to be the case that free trade has the effect of increasing equality, let's not forget that the desire for greater equality is predicated on the myth of the zero sum game. Let's not play into this myth. It is possible for income inequality to increase while simultaneously seeing a increase in prosperity across all demographics.

[TrystynAlxander_PoI]

Globalization and free trade in particular has caused income inequality by allowing big corporations to act as financial marauders.

[IndyThought]

Income inequality seems to me to be a red herring. The real issue to worry about is opportunity inequality. For example, if you work in the fast food industry and want to better your situation, do you have access to education or training, as long as you can afford it, or to put it another way, is something getting in your way of you bettering your situation, i.e. govt. regulations regarding starting your own business, growing a garden in your lawn, etc.

[starrychloe]

No one can explain why inequality is bad.

[bretlynn]

the faded video thumbnail made it look like i had already watched this video, so I kept passing it over lol

[Darktoque]

Spin is taking 96 percent of the profits in 2014 and then saying, I know your hurting but people in other countries and doing better than ever. Even though people earning .25 cents an hour in the 3rd world are still brutally poor.

[Partyffs]

I'm gonna give you some pizza! :D

We can split a regular size pizza 50/50
Or
I take 99% of a pizza the size of the planet, leaving you 1%.

So what deal do you want?

[hag]

The United States shouldn't be worried about Income Inequality as every country has that issue to some extent. The thing we should focus on is quality of life and its quantity within a country. Another thing is "How do we expand that quality of life to other countries such as India"?

[killacamron]

Hate to say this, but shouldn't taking care of our own country be what we are concerned with first and foremost? Millions of Americans are out of work since then and to make it worse it's to countries we aren't allied with. It feels a bit insulting that millions of us can't even get a job but we half to consider ourselves "lucky" because in other countries the only reason why they have our jobs is because it's cheaper.

[gilbet]

Capitalism and trade is about producing value, not equality.  But value is valuable to all of us because it generates products and jobs, so it doesn't matter who produces the value as long as somebody produces it.  Otherwise the value doesn't exist.  We can all be equal by outlawing trade and then equally having no value, but I think people prefer to live with value, rather than without it.

[TheBrakedown]

How can we prove that these changes are due to free market forces?

[bacawaka]

Free trade is loss revenue that could be used to fund the pointless governmental spending. Besides, most of those places are impoverished by the countries that free trade with them.

[jamiekloer]

Income inequality comes from creditism. Not capitalism creditism. When you allow debt to expand faster than gdp. Both private and public you get inequality. Leading to mass consumerism and a destroyed environment.

[thechristianlibertarian]

I love how people forget how we got to where we are and dont want the policies to continue.

[ShamanMcLamie]

The only problem with income inequality are the people who complain about it and their supposed solutions for it.

[harrypcs]

Hmm I'm not too sure about the whole "Globalization" and "free trade" neither of which are beneficial to the sovereignty of countries and individuals. At least as far as they have been unfolding they seem to have had a negative effect on personal liberties overall. Perhaps if big money and big government were to get out of the way then I would be more in favor of it.

[CCRUEnthusist]

Meanwhile our underclass is falling into oblivion because we keep shipping jobs over to India and China. Super.

[serenahermitt]

While the fact that income inequality globally is getting better, there is consistent data showing that within country inequality is widening in nearly every country. This is much worse than global levels of income inequality because it shows how the rich are getting richer at the expense of the poor, who are being exploited for others' benefit. Please take into account all of the information before promoting your neoliberal corporate propaganda.

[SOULFORESAKER]

Rightttt. Shame on us, back to work, ok.

[helios]

Name one Democrat against globalization or free-trade with any kind of power. That's what I thought

You've turned a cautionary article into a straw-man argument against people who are concerned about income inequality. You had a great opportunity to explain how common arguments about income inequality are flawed, like the worker productivity to wages chart or the corporate profits to wages chart, but instead all you had to say was, "The world is more equal so what's the problem?!" There are actual problems worthy of being addressed, but after your video there are going to be a lot of people who don't care about our inequality problem when EVEN TYLER COWEN, THE MAN YOU ARE CITING admits that it is still worthy of consideration. Bad form all around.