"The creation of new jobs overseas will eventually lead to more jobs and higher incomes in the United States...An open economy leads to concentrated costs (and diffuse benefits) in the short-term and significant benefits in the long-term. Protectionism generates pain in both the short-term and the long-term." (Drezner, 2004, p.1) in short, what is good for commerce abroad will, in a free market, eventually yield dividends for the American consumer at home. The allegation that globalization costs workers their jobs is not a new one, however. Even before outsourcing, it was alleged that globalization allowed American businesses to profit off of the lower wages in developing nations, and exploit the labor in these low-wage countries, particularly of poorly paid industrial workers such as women and children. According to anti-globalization activist Robert Weissman, "the last 20 years of corporate globalization, even measured by the preferred indicators of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, have been a disaster for the world's poor." (Weissman, 2001) Weissman alleges that these international organizations are dominated by U.S. interests and assumptions about what constitutes economic health, and forced nations to privatize their national industries and deal with more powerful Western businesses, whether this was in the nation's interest or whether their populations desired this to be the case. "Over the last two decades, Latin America has experienced stagnant growth, and African countries have seen incomes plummet," due to the forced promotion of exports and reduction of trade barriers that penalize weaker nations still developing their infrastructures. (Weissman, 2001)

Weissman demands that such developing nations should be able to borrow from international authorities to improve their organization, and he advocates the spread of such global technical resources as improved AIDS drugs to Africa, which have been produced partly as a result of the efforts of United States corporations. Globalization requires the sharing of wealth and health, the industrialized nations of the world must recognize. Greater aid rather than simply more advantageous trade agreements may be necessary in the future, if the benefits of globalization are continued to be enjoyed by all, for an unhealthy and environmentally unsound world hurts both the developing and the developed world. But rampant protectionism that shores up unprofitable and noncompetitive industries, even within developing nations, will not prove a long-term fix for countries that wish for their populace to attain the living standards currently enjoyed in the West, as it will merely encourage inefficient methods of production, just as protectionism has done in America, when this policy is practiced within certain industries.
Works Cited

Drenzer, Daniel. "The Outsourcing Bogeyman." From Foreign Affairs, May/Jun 2004.

Oct 2006] http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20040501faessay83301/daniel-w-drezner/the-outsourcing-bogeyman.html

Weissman, Robert a. (with Russel Mokhiber). "Bush's Challenge: Globalization Good

For the Poor." Aug 2001. Alter.net. [7 Oct 2006] http://www.alternet.org/story/11297/

Wolf, Matt. Why Globalization Works. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.