Illustration by Lennard Wolff (Year 11)
POLITICS
Low-skilled workers have become our sacrificial lambs
politicians. Instead, they listen to the people, and speak like them, too. Similarly, few have really listened to the cry of the rust- belt steel worker. But the forces of globalisation are rampant. The US trade deficit — i.e. how much more America imports than it exports — is currently at $500 billion dollars (it was $20 billion dollars in 1980). That simple statistic illustrates the argument for getting out of a global market and for putting up tariffs and renegotiating trade deals. The truth is that the service industry has benefited from globalisation: Britain became a global banking hub, and America, importing cheap parts or outsourcing production, the world leader in technological innovation. The problem is that this generally comes at the expense of workers in factories and car-manufacturing plants: now they can be easily out-competed by low-paid workers in developing countries. Statistics show a net benefit for the economy, with GDP growing from trade deals. But low-skilled workers have become our sacrificial lambs. The problem worsens when governments fail to help those whom globalisation hurts. Where are the programmes to re-train workers, the lower tuition fess so poorer children can attain higher skills-levels, or the subsidies to keep factories open? Failure to act has meant great divides opening up between different areas and demographics – between rural and urban, rust-belt and tech-hub. This is why some of the top-ten cities in America with the highest wage growth are San Jose and San Diego in Silicon Valley, and cities with the highest wage fall include Columbus, Ohio, and Detroit, Michigan, both former manufacturing centres. The divide was caused by globalisation; populism is the attempt to bridge the divide. Trump may not be the answer – but that doesn’t mean that the arguments for populism are shallow and meaningless. Either way, we need greater understanding of these problems so that in an era of great political divides, we can start to move beyond our bubbles.
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