Does technology drive inequality?

June 7, 2011

It seems you can't read news online or watch them on TV without hearing about the growing inequality of incomes in the U.S. Many question the validity of these claims, but let's assume for a minute they're true and that chief provocateur and mercantilist Lou Dobbs is right when he clumsily proclaims on CNN that there's a war on the middle class. The bogeyman of Dobbs and his ilk is globalization. They posit that the middle class is being attacked by overseas workers willing to labor for dollars a day. Their answer is to restrict trade and close off our economy to world markets. But what if they’re wrong?

It seems you can't read news online or watch them on TV without hearing about the growing inequality of incomes in the U.S. Many question the validity of these claims, but let's assume for a minute they're true and that chief provocateur and mercantilist Lou Dobbs is right when he clumsily proclaims on CNN that there's a war on the middle class. The bogeyman of Dobbs and his ilk is globalization. They posit that the middle class is being attacked by overseas workers willing to labor for dollars a day. Their answer is to restrict trade and close off our economy to world markets. But what if they’re wrong?