Quality, quality of life, and well-being are not easily quantified, so they are ignored.
I often write about the Tyranny of Price, the rarely examined assumption that lower prices are all that matters.
Thanks to the Tyranny of Price, the quality of many goods has plummeted.Obsolescence
is either planned or the result of inferior components that fail,
crippling the entire product. As correspondent Mark G. has observed, the
poor quality we now accept as a global standard wasn't available at any
price in the 1960s-- such poor quality goods were simply not
manufactured and sold.
There is another even more pernicious consequence of the Tyranny of Price: globalization,
which makes two promises to participants: 1) lower prices everywhere
and 2) manufacturing work that will raise millions of poor people in
developing economies out of poverty.
Globalization is presented as a win-win solution: the developed countries get cheaper goods and the developing world get the benefits of industrialization.
But now a new study, Poorer Than Their Parents? Flat or Falling Incomes in Advanced Economies,
finds that globalization has been a bad deal for 80% of the people in
developed economies, as their income and wealth has stagnated or
declined.
A Cheerleader for Globalization Has Second Thoughts: A new study from the McKinsey Global Institute finds that changes in the world economy have left many people worse off..
The McKinsey report focuses on the 540 million residents of developed
nations who have lost ground in the era of globalization. But if we look
at the terrible pollution in China, we find that rapid
industrialization hasn't been as win-win for developing nations as
advertised.
The mainstream cheerleaders of globalization have been forced to
accept that globalization exacerbates wealth/income inequalities by
boosting the rewards for the 20% who benefit from global markets and
capital-friendly central bank policies (zero interest rates and
quantitative easing) that have pushed asset valuations to incredible
bubble heights around the world.
Domestically, the American ruling class and the mainstream punditry are struggling to square the circle,
that is, defend the globalization of the U.S. economy that has greatly
enriched corporations, the wealthy and the top 5% of the work force but
also alleviate the stagnation in the incomes and wealth of the bottom
80%.
Correspondent Graham R. summed up the situation very succinctly in a recent email:
"Focusing on the minimum wage is a false flag. The society as a whole
is now stressed at every level because Globalism has promised us
cheaper prices at the cost of destroying societal structures and their
meaning for its members."
Graham identifies a key consequence of globalization that the mainstream media has ignored: the
erosion of social/economic structures that supported communities and
provided purpose, meaning and stability to their residents.
When price is all that matters, factories and offices are closed
overnight and the work is shipped elsewhere. When production costs go
up, the production is moved to another locale.
In this environment, employees are competing with workers globally,
which suppresses wages everywhere. Since global corporations have gained
political power in globalization, they can buy lobbying and political
influence that raises the cost of commerce for small businesses--a
process known as regulatory capture that erects walls that stifle competition.
Regulatory capture is the inevitable result of globalization's rewarding of capital and erosion of labor.
Price is not the sole absolute good. Price is only one kind of
information. Since price is easily quantified and converted into any
currency, it has achieved total dominance in markets and mindspace.
Quality, quality of life, and well-being are not easily quantified, so
they are ignored. Stagnation, insecurity and a loss of social cohesion
are the inevitable result once price is all that counts.Source: http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com.au/2016/07/globalizations-few-winners-and-many.html