The Race to the Bottom: Why a Worldwide Worker Surplus and Uncontrolled Free Trade Are Sinking American Living Standards

by Alan Tonelson

Book Overview

With the end of the 1990s economic boom, The Race to the Bottom deftly explores how the United States has entered a no-win global competition in which the countries with the lowest wages, weakest workplace safety laws, and toughest repression of unions win investment from the U.S. and Europe. Tonelson analyzes how the entry of such population giants as China, India, and Mexico into the global market has accelerated the erosion of wages and labor standards...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0813340241
• ISBN13: 9780813340241
• Release Date: August 2002
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 248 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

No better book for understanding the truth about "free trade

I have ready many books about globalization and its effects, but Alan Tonelson's "The Race to the Bottom: Why a Worldwide Worker Surplus and Uncontrolled Free Trade are Sinking American Living Standards" is the ONLY book to explain the truth behind globalization. If the US public understood just simple facts, like the difference between producer goods and consumer goods, it would be clear why the US has the most massive trade deficit in history; and the US public would demand that congress act to stop the fast track legislation given to the president. (This is being carried out now by Bush, but was negotiated under Clinton. In other words, both parties are complicit in the destruction of the US middle class.) As Tonelson says, "Current globalization policies have plunged the great majority of U.S. workers into a great worldwide race to the bottom, into a no-win scramble for work and livelihoods with hundreds of millions of their already impoverished counterparts across the globe. In addition, by sapping the earnings power of U.S. consumers, who are almost single-handedly propping up the world economy despite their sagging earnings, continuing this race could all too easily bring the global financial house of cards tumbling down." Tonelson doesn't merely make a statement like this, he proves it with expert economic analysis that he explains clearly to the lay public. Read this book and act on it, before the U.S. middle-class is further eroded.

Frightening

This book details the depressing details of globalization, and debunks the promises of free trade, like Mexico being a huge market(it isn't), most workers that lose their factory jobs would get new and improved high tech jobs(they haven't), and we'll do the high tech stuff and the Third World will do the low tech(not true). We are living in an age where business can relocate almost anywhere. Our corporations are dumping our highest paying jobs overseas and/or importing Third World workers to do them (like Indian programmers). The result is a slowly sinking standard of living. Between mass immigration and globalization it appears we may be at the beginning of a new age of poverty. For "fun" scroll down to the first review of the book, down to the guy that gave it one star (apparently after reading only part of chapter one). Print it out and keep it with this book. After you read the book, re-read his review and then see if you can answer the question: What planet are the globalists living on? This just in: According to NPR, one of the last textile factories in the US closed on October 22, 2002. It was a fancy high-end shirt factory in Maine. It had been in business for decades. The women there worked so fast that their hands were just a blur. Not fast enough apparently, as they couldn't compete with the sweat shops of the Third World. (NPR said "foreign competition") Some of the women had worked there for twenty years and cried when they left. I seem to remember the globablists saying that foreigners only took jobs Americans didn't want. Perhaps those women were just crying tears of joy.

Facts First And Feelings Second

I found this work to be significant in that the title and the content described clearly the global trade dynamic which we find our selves in today. I'd heard George Gilder a few years back tell a gathering of telecomm executives that they were caught up in this very dynamic; many of them have already lost that race and are no longer with us.Mr. Tonelson's research is clearly evident in this book. He has done the heavy lifting(analysis)needed to make considered and substantiated statements about something a complex as the impact of global trade on our quality of life in this country.I recently read "The Lexus and the Olive Tree" by Thomas Friedman and thought it a good counterpoint to "The Race To The Bottom." "The Race To The Bottom" is richer in the numbers and is focused on us, while "The Lexus and the Olive Tree" is the more subjective and places the subject in a global and human context.I highly recommend both books, however if you want solid facts before solid impressions, I'd say read "Race To The Bottom" first to get a good sense of "what." Then read "The Lexus And The Olive Tree" to figure out the "why" of it all.My thanks to both authors.

What's to Happen to the American Worker?

I liked this book because it helped answer questions about why so many jobs (including high-tech jobs) are leaving the U.S. and what the repercussions are. It discusses why "free trade" isn't really free trade at all but in many cases a one-way street and who loses because of these arrangements. It was astounding to me to see the number of high-tech jobs that U.S. corporations have moved overseas. It puts a perspective on the trade question that just isn't discussed on American television. If so many other countries have the ability to perform even high-tech jobs at low wages, what does this say about the future of the U.S. worker, education and training notwithstanding? Who is in control here? The markets? Read the book and draw your own conclusions. As the Romans used to ask, "Cui bono?"

Nobody Wins this "Race" (to The Bottom)

As the author of five books -- and numerous magazine articles -- concerning economics and competitiveness, I was impressed with the central arguments contained in Tonelson's book.Although his central thesis would have been steadfastly denied prior to the now-reigning economic slump / recession, they will be taken more seriously today.The manuscript was well-written and contains a number of observations not generally considered in the mass media. I enjoyed the book because it is non-technical and cites independent sources to substantiate its claim that globalization has not spread beneftis to Mr & Ms Average American. julian weiss