Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Fed, has made his views on globalization known in a well publicized speech. Globalization is nothing new, it is the way of the world, free trade is wonderful, a cross between liberty and gravity.
This is all well rehearsed and unsurprising. Only towards the end, does Bernanke mention the "opposition". Multilaterlaism and regionalism appear to be interchangeable means to the end. Distributional effects are distractions, the failure of Doha merely a bump in the road:
"The critical role of government policy in supporting, or at least permitting, global economic integration, is a third similarity between the past and the present. Progress in trade liberalization has continued in recent decades--though not always at a steady pace, as the recent Doha Round negotiations demonstrate. Moreover, the institutional framework supporting global trade, most importantly the World Trade Organization, has expanded and strengthened over time. Regional frameworks and agreements, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and the European Union's "single market," have also promoted trade. Government restrictions on international capital flows have generally declined, and the "soft infrastructure" supporting those flows--for example, legal frameworks and accounting rules--have improved, in part through international cooperation.
In yet another parallel with the past, however, social and political opposition to rapid economic integration has also emerged. As in the past, much of this opposition is driven by the distributional impact of changes in the pattern of production, but other concerns have been expressed as well--for example, about the effects of global economic integration on the environment or on the poorest countries".
