Globalist dogma, especially as propagated in simplified form by Tom Friedman (The Lexus and the Olive Tree) has won widespread acceptance by nearly all political parties and media outlets in America and Britain. This is rather alarming, for as Fingleton notes, there is substatial evidence that the New-Economy-fueled prosperity of the late 90s was a fluke, never to be repeated. Yet while our balance of trade deteriorates, our manufacturing base shrinks, high-wage employment plummets and our foreign creditors get scared, the false prophets of globlization continue to preach the same old gospel.
The fundamental problem-and I am sure Mr. Fingleton understands this-is that reform will only become possible once the mainstream media and both the Republican and Democratic parties stop accepting faulty dogma. I mention this because Fingleton brings up Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan towards the end of his book, noting that they too have challenged the conventional wisdom on trade policy and manufacturing.
I think that this is a very serious mistake.
Nader and Buchanan may be right about certain issues-corporate compensation and trade policy, for instance...But there few people in the world who are more widely reviled by the Democratic and Republican party establishments, for obvious reasons. They are also unpopular in the mainstream press, which considers both of them as dangerous, wild-eyed radicals. And, last but not least, Naderites tend to hate Buchananites-and vice versa! So bringing up Nader (prominently on the cover) and Buchanan may boost sales, but it is also the surest way of alienating the wider public and the 'power elite' of the press and politics.
Still, issues of presentation and public relations aside,
Mr. Fingleton deserves immense credit for his well-reasoned and convincing arguments, no less than for being the first to sound the alarm bells. There is recent evidence that influential people as starting to pay attention to the disastrous effects of US trade policy (Warren Buffett writes an article in the Nov. 10th issue of Fortune magazine, calling for trade restrictions to limit the growing US trade deficit). Hopefully, a wider range of influential figures will be ready to listen to Mr. Fingelton's recommendations, and act on them, before it is too late.