Henry George Lecture Series presents "Globalizations Critics: Why They Are Wrong"

March 23, 2006--Queens Campus--The Economics and Finance Department of The Tobin College of Business presented Jagdish N. Bhagwati, Ph.D; University Professor of Economics and Law, Columbia University, NY; Senior Fellow. As part of the Henry George Lecture Series, the topic of this year's lecture was "Globalization's Critics: Why They are Wrong."

Presenting to over 150 students, faculty and administrators, Professor Bhagwati used his new book, In Defense of Globalization (2004), as the basis for this lecture. During the one hour lecture, Dr. Bhagwati argued in favor of free trade and against protection. He claims this is the mainstream position of most of the world's economists stating that freer trade clearly stimulates global economic development, increasing Gross Domestic Product and decreasing overall levels of poverty.

Bhagwati, however, contends that the critics of globalization focus less on economic benefits than issues of social justice. Some of these issues are income inequality, gender roles, environment, child labor, and education. Addressing these and other issues is the main objective of his book.

Professor Bhagwati concluded that globalization based on freer trade, on balance, provides an improvement in all these conditions. Thus, he showed that income inequality decreases, the role of women improves, environmental quality improves, and the use of child labor declines. Further, the education of children will increase.  Bhagwati also concluded that this does not preclude forces outside the marketplace, such as governmental and non-governmental agencies (NGOs), from taking actions that will improve these conditions further.

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