Han Feizi
“Pay them off,” he said. Over two decades ago, that was the plan for globalization’s losers coughed up by a junior priest of the Washington Consensus then teaching at one of America’s august indoctrination asylums.
What he meant was that the gains from globalization would be immense – more than enough to compensate Ohio factory workers whose jobs would be outsourced to China.
This junior priest founded a consulting company, rode the globalization wave to its peak, reversed course with perfect timing and now advises American companies and state organs as a China hawk, ascending to high priest status in the New Washington Consensus.
“Pay them off.” We all bought it then. So simple, so elegant, so logical, so easy. Democracy and capitalism would surely figure out a mechanism. It wasn’t our problem. Our problem was getting past round one of the Goldman Sachs interview.
Of course, we now know that there was not going to be a pay-them-off mechanism. The winners of globalization – those who passed rounds two and three – were going to fight tooth and nail for every last cent the Washington Consensus threw our way.
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