There have been setbacks and could still learn

I have already addressed many times the problems of globalization: an unfair international trade regime that impedes development. an unstable international financial system that leads to recurrent crises, to which poor countries are found in a situation of insurmountable debt; and international IP device that prevents access to affordable drugs can save lives while AIDS ravages the developing world.

I also talked about abnormalities of globalization: money should flow from rich countries to poor countries, in recent years is the opposite happened. The rich are better able to fluctuations in interest and exchange rates, and the poor who bear the brunt of this volatility.

Indeed, I have so much noise, that many have concluded, erroneously, that I belong to the anti-globalization movement. However, I am confident that this phenomenon has enormous potential, if it is properly managed.

Seventy years ago, during the great depression, John Maynard Keynes formulated his theory of unemployment, that Government action could help restore full employment. Despite Keynes worked more in favour of the capitalist system and all financial together. If it had listened to them, the great depression would have done even more damage, and claims for an alternative to capitalism would have been stronger.

Even today, lack of recognition and resolution of the problems of globalization, it is hardly viable. There have been setbacks and could still learn.

Supporters of globalization were correct in arguing that it is able to improve the standard of living for all. But this is not what it has done so far. The questions posed by young French people who wonder what globalization is positive if it means accepting lower wages and insecurity, can no longer be ignored. It can not answer these questions by the hope that one day or the other all reap benefits. As Keynes pointed out, in the long term, we are all dead.

The accentuation of inequality in the advanced industrial countries is a consequence predicted for a long time but seldom of globalization. The full economic integration implies the Equalization of pay unskilled everywhere in the world, and, although we are still very far from this objective "", the pressure at the bottom is evident.

Technological changes have contributed to the near stagnation past three of real wages for low-skilled workers in the United States and elsewhere since thirty years, and there is little that the citizens can not. However, they can influence the course of globalization.

Economic theory, everyone does not win of globalization, but the net benefits are positive, and the winners can therefore compensate the losers without losing their advantage. But conservatives have argued that to remain competitive on a global scale, must be reducing taxes and social welfare. It is made in the United States, where taxes have become less progressive, and where incentives were awarded to the winners, i.e. those that benefit both globalization and technological change. Result, the United States and their followers are becoming from the rich to the poor.

However, the Scandinavian countries showed an alternative. Of course, the Government, as the private sector, must strive for efficiency. But investments in education and research, together with a good social safety net, can stimulate a more productive and more competitive economy with more security and a higher life for all. Good social protection and a near full employment market create a climate which encourages all actors workers, investors and entrepreneurs to take the necessary risks to investment and entrepreneurship.

The problem is that the globalization of the economy has outpaced the policy and attitudes. We have become more interdependent, hence the need to act together, but we lack institutional frameworks for the effective and democratic.

International organizations like the IMF, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization are more indispensable than ever, and yet the confidence that they inspire is the lowest. The only world superpower the United States despises supranational institutions and strives to undermine them. The imminent failure of the round of trade negotiations "for development" and the procrastination of the Security Council of the United Nations for a ceasefire in the Lebanon are just the latest manifestations of the disdain of the United States for multilateral initiatives.

It is in a better understanding of the ills of globalization that we can find cures to treat the symptoms and address the root causes. There are a wide range of policies to benefit people in developing and developed countries, and that would therefore give globalization the popular legitimacy which it currently lacks.

In other words, globalization can change. It is even apparent that it will change. Remains whether the change will be the inevitable consequence of a crisis or thought-out result of a democratic debate. A crisis could provoke hostile reactions or disorderly reorientation leading term on new challenges. On the other hand, taking control of the process, we can shape globalization, able to finally realize its potential and its promise: a better standard of living for all.