StevenLaura

Three Cheers for Export-Led Growth

In Thomas Friedman's column I found an anecdotal example of economic sucess in China which should make some folks sqirm...
He writes:

China's most modern cities — and there are still plenty of miserable, backward ones — are rapidly grabbing business as knowledge centers, not just manufacturing hubs. No, Toto, they are not just making tennis shoes here. Try G.E., Microsoft, Dell, SAP, H.P., Sony and Accenture, which are setting up back-room operations here for Asian companies and software R.& D. centers.

And then Later:

Just as in manufacturing, he [the mayor] added, "Chinese people first were the employees and working for the big foreign manufacturers. And after several years, after we have learned all the processes and steps, we can start our own firms. Software will go down the same road. . . . First we will have our young people employed by the foreigners, and then we will start our own. It is like building a building. Today, the U.S., you are the designers, the architects, and the developing countries are the bricklayers for the buildings. But one day, I hope, we will be the architects."

This is bad news for anti-globalization activists because it says that (Uh-Oh!) Capitalism works sometimes, and that the US is not actually exploiting poorer countries, but allowing them to become wealthy. The other half of the Anti-globalization crowd (Labor-union types) will cry out in pain that our good jobs are being stolen by the Chinese. Really the only people who can cheer at this are right-wing-capitalist zealots like myself who are at least tentatively convinced that a well functioning competative international economy is in the best interests of everyone (I used to think this was a moderate position pre-Kerry/Gephart/Kucinich/Dean/Edwards...).