Wolf Why Globalization Works Article Review

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Wolf, "Why Globalization Works"

Martin Wolf begins his argument about "Why Globalization Works" with evidence of globalization's role in the widening gap between the world's richest and poorest groups, with statistics quoted in which the world's richest 200 individuals own more than the total combined income of the world's poorest 2 billion people. Wolf examines the claim that globalization is responsible for a massive growth in inequality, which as he summarizes it contains seven different points: the gap between average incomes in the richest and poorest countries continues to grow, so has the gap in living standards, overall global inequality among individuals is rising, the number of people in extreme poverty has grown, so has the overall percentage those people comprise of the world's population, the poor are worse off in terms of most other quality of life measurements, and finally income inequality is increasing within countries in direct proportion to their participation in the globalized economy.

But Wolf notes that "critics of globalization have themselves often rightly argued that there is more to life than income" (Wolf 703) and thus a focus on the mere statistics of inequality may be looking in the wrong place.
It is possible for the increase in the incomes of the rich at the expense of the poor, or with no change whatsoever for the poor, or else it might be possible that, metaphorically speaking, a rising tide lifts all boats. In a purely utilitarian calculus, Wolf argues, the only one of these that is unambiguously bad is the scenario in which the rich get richer at the expense of the poor. To object to the rich getting richer with no change for the poor, Wolf slyly argues, is to show oneself prejudiced against the welfare of the rich. In any case, Wolf also notes that the relation of globalization to any one of these outcomes is going to be complicated, and it may not be possible to lay the blame for negative outcome specifically on the pressures and priorities that come with participation in the globalized economy.

Wolf then speaks from his experience as a senior economist with the World Bank, in charge of overseeing India. The change in….....

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