Resisting globalisation is a losing strategy (and II)

For nearly a generation, none of the large, advanced capitalist economies have been able to both deliver growth and promote social justice at the same time. The United States produced generally strong growth from the early 1990s until the financial meltdown, but virtually all of the economic gains in that period were captured by the highly trained professionals and managers at the top of the skills ladder and by the wealthiest 1%, who hold about 45% of America’s financial assets. Inequalities of wealth are less drastic in the major Western European economies. But the annual growth rate of the German, French and British economies averaged between 20 and 35% lower than that of the US economy over this period; and the incomes of moderate and middle-income Western European households largely stagnated, much as they did in the United States.

5. The most powerful responses start with growth – and specifically with greater public and private investments to enhance the comparative advantages of advanced countries as idea-based economies.

6. To ensure that these gains are shared more fairly, the advanced economies have to make major changes to their education and training systems.

7. The last generation’s advances in information and communications technologies play a major role in all of these developments.

8. Much like globalisation, governments need new approaches to ensure that the gains from the impact of information and communications technologies across the advanced economies can be shared more broadly.

9. Government should begin to address directly the increasing inequalities of wealth.