Don’t Think the Globalization Debate Is Over? Watch This Video.

I hope you weren’t expecting some mushy paean to thankfulness today. Far too much going on out there, so let’s jump right in. Your one thing to read this week is something to watch, actually: the Cato Institute’s new video series, “Faces of Globalization.”

The project appears to represent a major investment for Cato—they even sent a film crew to Guatemala—and the final product is fascinating. Here is their best possible case for globalization, made with the most compelling examples they could find around the world, and it is a total capitulation. It acknowledges the costs of the free-trade regime that Cato has advanced, fails to find the promised benefits, and then just wanders off into the sunset. It’s important to watch these videos to understand just how fully their position has collapsed.

Scott Lincicome, Cato’s vice president of general economics and our guide for this journey, begins the hastily beaten retreat with the very first words of the introductory video:

Globalization is a common term that’s commonly misunderstood. When we hear we think of container ships, terms like trade deficit, or dry governmental agreements. But what if I told you that real globalization is the people working at your local restaurant, or the ones behind your favorite TV show?

Well, Scott, I’d say that’s ridiculous, and the sort of thing you tell someone when you’ve spent 25 years pitching a catastrophically failed version of globalization and now want to change the subject. You see, the reason we think of governmental agreements and trade deficits is because those are the major mechanisms and effects of globalization, they are what the debates are about, and they are what has eviscerated American industry, hollowed out communities across the country, and devastated millions of lives. And you don’t have to take my word for it, because we learn more about all this in the next video in the series.

In “From Textile Town to Ghost Town to Car Town,” Cato tells the story of West Point, Georgia, which was crushed by NAFTA, the “dry governmental agreement” we saw President Bill Clinton signing in the first video. “Over 100 years we’ve been a textile town,” says West Point’s mayor. “The North American Free Trade Agreement basically put that out of business, and West Point became a ghost town.” Adds Lincicome, “textile companies that had been in West Point for 100 years left for places where the cost of labor was cheaper.”

But after nearly 20 years of economic distress, a Kia plant opens, bringing the town back to life. With the return of manufacturing and the broader supply chains it attracted, the local pizza parlor is doing better too. “The very same forces that once challenged West Point are fueling its rebirth today and supporting thousands of Americans in the process,” explains Lincicome. “It shows that globalization’s story doesn’t just end after a disruptive event, it’s constantly changing, and usually for the better.” Mmhmm.