Dr. Freeman, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Globalization (kudos to Kubrick)

Richard B. Freeman, a Harvard economist, gave a talk on "The Challenges of Inequality and Global Capitalism to U.S. Democracy" at UC Berkeley on February 11, 2008. He notes that US inequality is well document, extreme (worst that other developed countries, roughly the same as China!), and growing. The good news is that the level of inequality around the world is shrinking, but paradoxically within most countries the level of inequality is increasing. He is not an opponent of globalization. He likes that it is helping to lift the world's poor up out of poverty. But, he points out that globalization is behind the phenomenon of falling wages because of a very simple fact: since China and India have joined the global capitalist system this has doubled the number of workers while keeping the amount of capital the same, so it has by the laws of supply and demand, given an edge to capital, so the returns to capital have gone up while wages have dropped in the developed world.

His talk is interesting. He is a quirky guy (oddball cartoons) which some will find distracting and others will see as part of his "charm". His mumbling and mannerism do detract from the quality of the delivery of his lecture. But, once you get past these and focus on his talk, you will find a lot of interesting facts and thoughtful ideas. The hour lecture is well worth spending the time: