Its impacts will wax and wane over time, raising the question of how frequently policy parameters might be adjusted in the face of these shifting trends. In the pursuit of flexibility, how do we prevent this from looking terribly arbitrary? These difficulties are not trivial, so considerable care needs to be taken.
For its supporters, globalization is the best way forward for collective global prosperity and welfare. For its critics, on the other hand, globalization is an unmitigated evil. They evoke powerful images, say of sweat shops in developing countries, degradation of the Amazon rain forest, erosion of peasant farming in poor economies and acid rain around the world’s industrial towns to buttress their argument.