Professor of economics at Columbia University and distinguished economic lecturer Jagdish Bhagwati stressed to a large Humanities-building crowd Wednesday that globalization and international trade are not to blame for international problems such as poor labor standards, environmental pollution and gender inequality.
Bhagwati said many problems often attributed to globalization are actually the result of other factors. He also said consumers and American stockholders, rather than the implementation of restrictive trade regulations, should play a role in the reduction of these problems.
“It’s you people — stockholders — who are responsible for pushing [the reduction of social problems] out,” Bhagwati said. “These [multinational] corporations are your corporations.”
Bhagwati said the capitalist institution itself can promote change as corporations will react to market demand for products not produced in countries denying human rights.
“Economics and common sense sometimes go together,” Bhagwati said.
Bhagwati also addressed international demand for unskilled workers and the decline of international labor standards, saying both have been nearly unaffected by globalization.
The demand for unskilled workers diminishes due mostly to increases in technology rather than the internationalization of corporations, he said. He added that even in a fiercely competitive international market such as the garment industry, labor standards on the whole are improving across the world.
Commenting on the idea that gender inequality is encouraged by the internationalization of economies, Bhagwati cited several studies providing support to the contrary viewpoint.
Bhagwati said in Japan, executives who turned to global solutions traveled to more-developed nations and returned to Japan with the notion women should be treated equally. He added this aspect of globalization has brought about a noticeable positive change in the Japanese outlook toward gender equality and the same effect has been felt in other parts of the world.
Following the lecture, Bhagwati considered several questions from members of the audience.
One self-deemed “anti-sweatshop activist” commented that although many side effects of globalization are beneficial to the global community, negative repercussions exist.
“The international bank does do good things for gender inequality … but they also fund things like dam programs in India that haven’t done anything beneficial for the country,” he said. “The only one that wins is the company who can take its factory anywhere they want.”
Bhagwati was also asked how he thought globalization might affect education, particularly if students should expect universities to be outsourced to countries where low-cost professors could teach students by means of improved technology.
Bhagwati said universities in particular cannot be outsourced due to the fact that many students and parents are interested in personal interaction with professors. The quality of teaching would decrease between international differences and lack of individual contact that the outsourcing of professors to other countries would never happen, he said.
Bhagwati appeared in the Humanities building to promote his newest book and was sponsored by the department of economics, the University Bookstore and the Contemporary Issues Committee.
