The Failure Of Globalization In The United States

The advent of globalization promised an increase in prosperity for everyone. Globalization, however, hasn’t lived up to its expectations. Joseph Stiglitz, a professor of economics at Columbia University and Noble Memorial Prize recipient, argues that globalization has, in many ways, failed. In a discussion of his that can be found on YouTube, Stiglitz states that he believes the single reason globalization has failed is because economic globalization has outpaced political globalization (Stiglitz, 2013). This outpacing of economic globalization has led to a democratic deficit where all affected constituents are not represented, and therefore decisions are made that only reflect the interests of specific parties (Stiglitz, 2013). I will highlight some of the examples …show more content…
As a result of the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations, developing countries were asked to open their borders and eliminate governmental subsidies (Stiglitz, 2013). However, the United States of America (US) and countries in Europe continued subsidizing their agricultural industries. These subsidies among developed countries had two troubling effects. First, as seen with the case of the cotton industry in the US, US taxpayers were required to pay millions of dollars for these subsidies that eventually benefit only about small number of families who, when combined, receive billions of dollars in yearly revenue from agricultural sales (Stiglitz, 2013). Second, these subsidies reduce the price of agricultural products globally, which cause a reduction in the livelihood of tens of millions of families in developing countries around the world (Stiglitz, 2013). A lack of political globalization and fair representation in this case has led to an asymmetrical distribution of the benefits of globalization—a handful of families have gained wealth while poverty became more rife for