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{"id":18755,"date":"2017-03-21T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-03-21T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=478"},"modified":"2017-03-21T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-03-21T00:00:00","slug":"just-globalization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2017\/03\/just-globalization\/","title":{"rendered":"Just Globalization"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I<\/span>n the blink of an eye, globalization has changed from the inevitable future and the panacea for all human ills to a curse word and the source of all American misery. It takes guts to speak up for globalization these days.<\/p>\n

Brent Waters has guts. He no doubt began writing his Just Capitalism<\/em><\/a> before the most recent outbreak of anti-globalization, but his book couldn\u2019t be more relevant.<\/p>\n

His claims are modest. He argues that today\u2019s global capitalism and globalization are \u201cnot inherently incompatible with some central Christian theological and moral convictions.\u201d Positively, and more strongly, he contends that \u201cglobalization is the only credible means at present for alleviating poverty on a global scale. Consequently, a well-ordered global capitalism is compatible with such core convictions as a preferential option for the poor and promoting human flourishing. To be naively anticapitalism is thereby to effectively opt against the poor and diminish human flourishing. Therefore, an ethic of globalization necessarily entails a defense of capitalism.\u201d Globalization holds promise of an equitable distribution of goods.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t theoretical. In Brazil, for instance, \u201cthe percentage of people living on less than $1.25 (US) a day . . . has been cut in half from 2.6 percent to 1.3 percent of the population while per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has more than doubled from $3,431 to $7,896. More impressively, China\u2019s poverty line has fallen from 10.7 percent to 4 percent, and per capita GDP increased from $466 to $3,528.\u201d <\/p>\n

Waters knows that integration into the global market creates dislocations; he knows there are losers. But he argues that no alternative system has done more to raise the living standards of the world\u2019s poorest peoples.<\/p>\n

Why then the opposition to globalization, especially among Christians who might be inclined toward a \u201cpreferential option for the poor\u201d? Waters suggests that \u201cit is often assumed that economic exchange in general is a tawdry affair, and the creation of affluence and wealth in particular is invariably ill-gotten gain.\u201d Waters responds by pointing out that economic exchanges aren\u2019t zero-sum and that \u201cin an exchange-based economy, producers want affluent rather than impoverished consumers.\u201d <\/p>\n

More theoretically and theologically, \u201cexchange is a vital necessity and should not be given short shrift. Humans flourish in sharing or communicating the goods of creation. Consequently, a properly ordered pursuit of producing, exchanging, and enjoying created goods can promote communicative associations in which human flourishing occurs most prominently.\u201d<\/p>\n

From the other side, Waters argues that globalization helps to inhibit the violent potential of nationalism: \u201cNationalism tends to exacerbate conflict, given contending national interests that are resolved through the threat or implementation of coercive solutions. In short, it is consumers, not politicians, who have much more at stake in preserving a peaceful world of trade and exchange.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is surely more to say. The global economy not a politics-free zone. Wealthy and powerful nations set the rules of the game, and set them to their own advantage, and (deliberately or in effect) to the disadvantage of weaker and poorer nations. Nations with gunboats and smart bombs can force their way to resources and markets that are closed to less bellicose or well-equipped peoples. Global commerce is not a panacea nor a perfect system.<\/p>\n

But Waters mounts a powerful case, one that deserves attention\u2014provided we can hear it through the anti-globalist static.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"