I liked the breadth of coverage of this article, however it falls short of suggesting any better alternative to free trade, capitalism or financial liberalization. True that liberalization did not bring the expected positive impacts on inequality or poverty, but the reason is not that freer trade necessarily is bad for communities. Mexican economy is a lot more efficient now than it was before the liberalization process. The main problem is crony capitalism, bad public planning and a non-credible government. The solution to all of these problems is not to go back to closed economy where there are less opportunities for all and more room for non-transparent government and business activities. Liberalization can only do so much to create value, it is the governments and democracy’s role to distribute the pie more equitably with progressive policies as it is done by welfare states in Europe.

A last note: emphasizing the bad sides of everything is not realistic, because the world is full of grays (e.g. Mexican women benefited a lot from liberalization in term of increased employment, the poorest of the poor decreased in proportion and the economy is a lot more stable and less prone to crises every decade as it was in the past).

Regards,
Aslihan Arslan
PhD Candidate,
Agricultural and Resource Economics,
UC Davis