Barker picks up the Rodrik theme that free trade weakens social safety nets because the increasing mobility of capital is reducing the tax base. This is just plain wrong. If the tax base in rich countries is shrinking then so is their economies, meaning their living standards must also be falling. The likes of Rodrik claim that increased capital mobility also means less job security. These views are based on a very superficial view of the nature of capital.
Capital is the material means of production, which consists of a complex heterogeneous structure.
What Rodrik calls capital is the flow of savings that are converted into capital goods which are then integrated into the structure. When South Korea builds a chip plant in Britain, which it has done, it involves a considerable flow of capital. The same process takes place when Germany builds a car plant in China or Japan builds one in America. To claim, as Rodrik does, that these investments can be easily abandoned and thus do not provide job stability defies belief. It is also argued that by opening up their economies richer countries will be forced to cut taxes and spending if they are to succeed in the international market place.