Sharing Wealth

Ethan Kapstein documents how the new international economic order has torn huge holes in the welfare system, putting workers and the economy itself at risk. The founding premises of the post-World War II international economic agreements were that they would lead to greater wealth and that those gains would be shared equitably. The closing decades of the century have seen co-operation strengthened through the growth of trading blocs and multinational firms. But nations eager to remain competitive in the new world economy have at the same time beggared their labourers, tearing away crucial pieces of the social safety net. The predictable result, Kapstein argues, goes far beyond the alarming trends in income inequality already observed. Turning common wisdom on its head, Kapstein demonstrates that programmes to ensure the health and prosperity of workers, far from expensively undermining growth, actually promote and sustain growth over the long run. Bolstering his argument with historical lessons about the dangers of a dissatisfied workforce, he drives home a new view of labour's share in the world economyIn this volume, Ethan Kapstein makes the essential point that globalization has produced not just winners but losers as well, and that we ignore at our peril the gap between the rich and the poor that characterizes the global economy.