It points to one of the great contradictions in the push for globalization. Yet when the discussion turns to the rules of trade, as opposed to the theology of it, then the advocates often sing a different tune. They suddenly become dogged defenders of the very same national borders they deride as obsolete. They want to wipe out national boundaries when it means lowering standards for such things as workplace safety, the integrity of the food supply, and the like. But they want to maintain a balkanized world when national boundaries serve to protect them against higher standards.
Tax policy is an example.
It is not a coincidence that as global trade has expanded, the tax burden has shifted increasingly onto working people. In the U.S., corporations are contributing a paltry 10 percent of the federal income tax burden, about one-half the level they paid in the 1960s, with further declines projected in coming years. It is a symptom of a set of ground rules that let corporations reap the greatest benefits of trade and make workers bear the primary burdens. If there is one provision in the U.S. tax laws that demonstrates the hypocrisy of some free-traders, it is the subsidy for corporations that move their plants abroad. Yet the same people who preach about this idealized world market support a tax system that violates it in the most fundamental way.