Glob­al­isa­tion and betrayal of Amer­ica’s work­ing class

Oren Cass (“Amer­ica’s elite mis­in­ter­prets the pub­lic’s griev­ances”, Opin­ion, Janu­ary 12) has finally edu­cated the Amer­ican elite on the Amer­ican work­ing and middle classes’ dis­con­tent with glob­al­isa­tion.

Entire small cit­ies and towns became sig­ni­fic­antly poorer when major man­u­fac­tur­ing plants closed, union jobs were lost forever and cheaper prices at Wal­mart did not com­pensate for the loss. Cor­por­a­tions betrayed all Amer­ican stake­hold­ers except the equity share­hold­ers by fol­low­ing the advice of Milton Fried­man. Cor­por­ate exec­ut­ives became bil­lion­aires or at least mul­ti­mil­lion­aires. Share­hold­ers enjoyed massive profits. Cor­por­ate lob­by­ists and polit­ical con­tri­bu­tions allowed dein­dus­tri­al­isa­tion to occur under both party admin­is­tra­tions. It took over 25 years for most Amer­ic­ans to under­stand the betrayal and register their dis­ap­proval at the bal­lot box.

Michael Stoltz
Fort Worth, TX, US