Ian McAuley argues that it has not been globalisation and trade that has been the biggest factor displacing jobs in manufacturing. It has been automation.
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Australia needs to remember that embracing open markets can only be done with well developed market institutions and social safety nets.

Whether you love or loathe the President-elect of the United States, Donald Trump can get an economic policy issue media attention, as well as himself. Take the issue of trade and jobs, for example. After being a niche research topic that a few trade and labour economists (like me) were involved in, but few others in the media paid attention to, the Trumpster has thrust trade and jobs into the headlines. It dominated the presidential election campaign especially in the swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin (which remarkably Hilary Clinton didn’t visit) and even at the APEC Summit at Lima. I was gob smacked to hear Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Trade Minister Steve Ciobo talking about trade deals that are “good for workers” all the time at press conferences in Peru. Although back in 1992, the first President George Bush said he signed the free trade agreement with Canada (the predecessor to NAFTA) because he wanted to create “good jobs at good wages.” Whether he did achieve this wish in reality it seems, can be tested by the 2016 election outcome, where blue collar voters rebelled against free trade agreements. (more…)

Donald Trump’s victory in the American Presidential election has brought into prominence greatly divergent views concerning the merits or demerits of globalisation. Here we set out the criteria that need to be met before globalisation can be regarded as a world welfare improving institutional arrangement.

First, and absolutely fundamental and necessary, is the need for nation states engaged in trade and international borrowing and lending to implement domestic policies that establish sustained full employment of their work forces and normal capacity working of their existing stocks of capital goods and human capital. (more…)

The media excitement surrounding the theatrics of former Senator Bob Day and current Senator Rod Culleton seemed to obscure the real issues facing the federal government’s industrial relations legislation.

The government failed to put bills re-establishing the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC), and a new, government-appointed Registered Organisations Commission, onto the notice paper for discussion in the Senate when it was expected to. Most in the media took this to mean that Day and eccentric One Nation Senator Culleton are critical to passage of the bills. (more…)

The evidence is now irrefutable that the neo-liberal project that has dominated public policy across the major economies for nearly four decades now has been an unmitigated disaster. If nothing else, those who voted for Donald Trump have made that abundantly clear. In Australia neo-liberal (or economic rationalist) policies have resulted in wages stagnation, widespread job insecurity and declining living standards for the majority of the population. Neo-liberal taxation strategies favouring big corporations and the rich are a major cause of the fiscal crises facing governments at all levels across the country. Gold-plated promises that a deregulated economy, freed-up market, and pared-back state would see the majority of Australians benefiting from the trickle-down effects of economic growth have gone up in smoke. (more…)

In this article in the Harvard Business Review, Joan C Williams says:

“If you want to connect with white working class voters, place economics at the centre. … Trade deals are far more expensive than we have treated them because job development and training programs need to be counted as part of their cost. … At a deeper level, both parties need an economic program that can deliver middle class jobs. Republicans have one. Unleash American business. Democrats? They remain obsessed with cultural issues. … Back when the blue collar voters used to be solidly democratic, good jobs were at the core of the progressive agenda. … The biggest today for me and other Americans is continued class cluelessness. If we don’t take steps to bridge the class culture gap, when Trump proves unable to bring steel back to Youngstown, Ohio, the consequences could turn dangerous.”

Joan C Williams is a Distinguished Professor Law and Founding Director of the Center of WorkLife Law at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law.

We’re not sure who first said “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme”, but it’s an apt reminder of the similarities between the forces that have propelled Trump into the US presidency, and the forces that brought Germany’s National Socialists to power in 1933.

Trump claims, correctly, to be part of “an incredible and great movement”.

There is indeed a “great movement”. As in the 1930s countries are turning to what may be loosely described as far-right populism, a movement embracing notions of national or racial exceptionalism, a rejection of globalization, and identification of a supposed conspiracy of internal enemies with a corrosive influence on public ideas. (more…)

It wouldn’t be too unkind to suggest that Western Australia is not considered as the national benchmark of sophisticated public policy. Indeed, the state has recently attracted much attention – and derision – for the way its policy making elite squandered the wealth generated by the resources boom.True, we now have more sports facilities than you can poke a stick at, not to mention a major makeover of the city foreshore – albeit noticeably empty of the promised high profile developments that were supposed to succumb to its irresistible allure. But you can’t accuse the Barnett government of not having big ideas. (more…)

The economic theory known as supply side is better known as trickle down, because it goes something like this.

You give large sums of money to those who already have it, because they know the best way to handle it – they will invest it rather than simply trouser the loot.

As a result, the benefits trickle down to the rest of the community in the form of more jobs, better productivity and higher wages and conditions. And there may even be a few drops left for those at the very bottom: everyone benefits. (more…)

Rescuing globalisation from cheer leaders and populists.

If we cannot make globalisation work for all, in the end it will work for none.  Kofi Annan

Last week John Menadue raised the issue of globalisation, welcoming comment from other people in his blog community.

As he points out, the rise of Trump in the USA, the Brexit vote in the UK and the success of protectionist parties in our federal election have all elevated globalisation as a pressing issue, and there is a risk that we slide into an era of isolationism and protectionism.   (more…)