Making Globalization Work summary

Many people assume that free trade is one of globalization's positive aspects, because it allows both rich and poor countries to benefit by trading with each other. But is this true?

Well, not exactly. International-trade agreements, in fact, tend to be more profitable for wealthy countries.

Pharmaceutical companies invest a lot in researching and developing new drugs. That's why they're granted the rights to anything they’ve produced.

These intellectual property rights (IPR) are supposed to help drive innovation – but do they?

The international market for natural resources is perhaps the best illustration of globalization's downsides.

Countries with many natural resources usually have weaker economies than those with few. This contradiction is called the resource curse.

Global warming is a tremendous problem that nobody wants to pay to fix. The planet has been profoundly and adversely affected by the Tragedy of the Commons, whereby people don't consider the harm of their actions because resources seem endlessly abundant.

We need to change this – and fast.

For many, corporations are the evilest part of globalization. There are corporations richer than most countries in the developing world.

Corporations play a central role in globalization, and they have both positive and negative impacts.

These days, it's common to graduate from college with a great deal of debt – and it's certainly difficult to pay for a house or car while also paying off your loans.

Excessive debt poses similar problems for countries. When governments are in debt they have to make sacrifices in other areas, like education or healthcare. If we want to avoid this problem, we have to get down to its roots.

The global financial system isn't working well, especially for the developing world. Wealthy countries rely on poorer ones for a great deal of their wealth and material goods.

The international dollar-reserve system is also highly imbalanced. The US issues the world's reserve currency and uses it to buy cheap goods from China. In return, China purchases US dollar reserves.

Globalization clearly hasn't played out in the most effective way. We need to restructure it so that it benefits poorer countries, as well as impoverished people in wealthy countries.

For one, globalization is not managed democratically. International institutions like the IMF and World Bank protect the interests of industrialized nations much more than those of developing nations. In fact, a country’s voting rights in the IMF are determined by the contributions they make to the IMF fund every year. Naturally, wealthier countries can contribute more, so they end up having greater power over poorer countries, which can’t.