ABSTRACT
Critics think globalization and free trade are tools for the rich to exploit the poor and keep them down. Globalization is also very much about innovation. The blossoming of information technology, and dissolving barriers to commerce, promote new and better ways of doing things. Of course, as with any major phenomenon, globalization produces losers as well as winners. The big winners have been those nations embracing trade and openness. Globalization also helps regarding population. Poor farmers in closed economies need a lot of children for financial security, but opening up to trade expands economic opportunities and thereby lessens the pressure for large families. And globalization is a force for peace, which also reduces poverty, because war sucks up resources and disrupts economic activity. Trade protectionism is where the rich nations really do hurt the poor ones—not through globalization, but by undermining globalization.
