August 17, 2015
In an interesting piece on the decline of the political center, E.J. Dionne wrongly lists globalization as a villain. He tells readers:
“Globalization weakens the ability of moderate governments of both varieties to deliver on their promises. Capital can flee easily to more congenial climes, undercutting a nation’s tax base and its regulatory efforts.”
Globalization should also have the effect of reducing inequality by making it easier to take advantage of lower cost professional services (e.g. physicians services, lawyers’ services, dentists’ services) except that the United States has acted to maintain or even increase barriers to trade in these areas. It should also make it easier to circumvent patent and copyright monopolies that redistribute income upward, except we have consciously pursued policies to strengthen these forms of monopolies to limit the extent to which developing countries might provide vehicles for avoidance (in contrast to tax policy).
Also, governments with their own currency (e.g. the United States, the U.K., and the euro zone collectively) need not be restricted by their tax take in terms of spending, as long as they are below full employment. The decision not to use fiscal policy to bring economies to full employment is due to superstitions, not actual limits imposed by globalization.
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