MacroScope

Who hasn’t heard of Paul Krugman these days? The Nobel-winning Princeton economist and New York Times columnist has emerged as a key voice in American liberalism, and is berated by the right for his support of heavy fiscal stimulus, higher inflation and a strong social safety net.

Which makes the views espoused in a 1997 missive entitled “In Praise of Cheap Labor” rather surprising. In the article, the economist attacks opponents of globalization for their soft-hearted distaste for inhumane labor conditions in developing countries.

Such moral outrage is common among the opponents of globalization – of the transfer of technology and capital from high-wage to low-wage countries and the resulting growth of labor-intensive Third World exports. These critics take it as a given that anyone with a good word for this process is naive or corrupt and, in either case, a de facto agent of global capital in its oppression of workers here and abroad.

But matters are not that simple, and the moral lines are not that clear. In fact, let me make a counter-accusation: The lofty moral tone of the opponents of globalization is possible only because they have chosen not to think their position through. While fat-cat capitalists might benefit from globalization, the biggest beneficiaries are, yes, Third World workers.

Krugman did not respond to requests for comment.

Perhaps he can answer just this question: Aren’t the problems of high U.S. unemployment and stagnant wages that he so often bemoans a natural consequence of his own earlier logic that, for developing country workers, “bad jobs at bad wages are better than no jobs at all”?

Strong productivity may be good for an economy’s long-term growth prospects. But it’s not always great for workers in the near-run, since it literally means firms are squeezing more out of each employee. In reality, rapid productivity growth can make it harder for workers to get new jobs or bargain for raises.

The benefits of operating efficiently are obvious enough: Productive firms will have more money left over to invest, which should lead to more job creation in the future. Except lately, that future seems never to come, giving rise to the somewhat oxymoronic notion of a jobless recovery.

Millan Mulraine at TD Securities explains:

In many ways, the 2009 and 2002 economic rebounds are very similar in that both can be characterized as largely ‘jobless recoveries’. However, the compensating boost from capital investment – which was a defining feature of the 2003 economic recovery and a key underpinning for economic and productivity growth during the 2003-2007 period – has been largely missing during this cycle. The missing boost from capital investment activity has reinforced the subpar economic performance over the past two years, and will portend poorly for longer-term economic growth potential if the trend continues.

Bucking the usual tune of private sector lobbyists, a group called Business for a Fair Minimum Wage is calling for a hike in the minimum wage, saying it would boost business and the economy.

Business for a Fair Minimum Wage is a project of Business for Shared Prosperity, which describes itself as a national network of “forward thinking” business owners and executives.

The last step of a three-step federal minimum wage increase went into effect on July 24, 2009. The $7.25 an hour current minimum wage comes to just $15,080 a year for full-time work, below the poverty line.

The reigning narrative of Europe’s financial turmoil is that profligate European states, agglomerated all too offensively by a swine-referenced acronym, are forcing the continent’s wealthy, prudent northern countries to come to their rescue. Not so, according to two policy experts who spoke this week at a conference on the euro zone crisis at the University of Austin’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs.

They argue that labor reforms in Germany prevented the wages of manufacturing workers from rising after monetary union had been completed, making the country more competitive at the expense of its southern peers. Joerg Bibow, a professor of economics at Skidmore College, gives his view of events:

Germany’s wage trends have been the most important cause of the euro zone crisis. Those wage trends created an asymmetric shock that destabilized Europe.