Joe Stiglitz is a Nobel winner. He’s also most interested in development economics. A very interesting little snippet in his recent Project Syndicate piece:
And Malaysia had a third strike against it: for all the talk of the
"white man’s burden", the European powers did little to improve living
standards in the countries they ruled. The dramatic decline in India’s
share of global GDP under Britain’s rule, as Britain passed trade laws
designed to benefit its textile producers at the expense of those in
its colony, is the most visible example.
A decline in India’s share of global GDP could be for entirely bengin, even beneficial, reasons. For example, if India was growing but the rest of the world was growing faster. But leave that aside, yes, we really did hamstring the Indian textiles industry. But not, however, by passing trade laws so much as imposing labour conditions upon the industry. We insisted that the Indian factories follow the same rules on child and female labour, working hours and so on, as the factories in England.
A century and more on, does this remind you of anything? Yes, that’s it, those people who insist that we must put labour standards into our trade agreements. The net effect will be the same as last time this was tried. It will benefit our own producers, cut off the Third World ones at the knees and perpetuate poverty there. That’s not what the campaigners tell us of course, but it is what would happen.
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