Main Street America And The Third World

This book takes readers through the fascinating, complex Third World connections that shape our lives in profound but subtle ways.

Politicians and pundits can rage against free trade and globalization, but much of what they convey is myth says the author. He argues that free trade is good for the American family. Among the benefits he discusses are import competition that provides lower prices, greater variety, and better quality, especially for poor and middle class families. Driven in part by trade, most new jobs are well-paying service jobs. Foreign investment here has created well-paying jobs, and investment abroad has given United States companies access to millions of new customers. Trade helped expand the global middle class, reducing poverty and child labor while fueling demand for U.S. products. The author also looks at how the past three decades of an open global economy have created a more prosperous, democratic, and peaceful world.

In this title, the respected public affairs journalist Alfred Balk refreshingly and authoritatively challenges the new orthodoxy. Drawing on economic analyses and the perspective of thoughtful social researchers and government leaders abroad, Balk presents a challengingly different thesis, and one calculated to enliven current foreign and domestic policy debate.

Is public support for international development failing? The question was examined in a number of contexts during a meeting of experts brought together in a joint enterprise by the OECD Development Assistance Committee and the OECD Development Centre. Views ranged widely but the overall ...