Robin Hahnel - Corporate-sponsored Globalization, Criticism and Activism

Corporate-sponsored Globalization, Criticism and Activism

As the nineties wore on, Hahnel became increasingly immersed in analysis of corporate-sponsored globalization, and actively participated in movements opposed to it. As disparate oppositional groups planned and unified for what were to be momentous demonstrations against the World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle in 1999, Hahnel was among the leading economic analysts educating popular movements.

His first major book authored without Michael Albert was "Panic Rules". The book features concise analysis of crises due to financial liberalization in the era of globalization, a critique of the ideology and practices of global institutions such as the WTO, IMF and World Bank, and a tightly argued explanation of the conditional insights and much overlooked limitations of international trade theory based upon Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage.

Hahnel acknowledged core insights within comparative advantage theory, noting that "if opportunity costs of producing goods are different in different countries there are potential gains from specialization and trade." However, he explained that the potential gains are realized only under specific conditions, and expounded on the many real world factors that can account for significant efficiency losses. Among the most significant factors for efficiency losses from trade are inaccurate prices due to significant externalities that cause misidentification of comparative advantages, unstable international markets that create macro inefficiencies, and adjustment costs of moving people in and out of industries that can be considerable. Moreover, in spite of Ricardo's theory, international trade usually aggravates global inequality because terms of trade are set inequitably as a result of the dominant bargaining positions of northern countries, and thanks to class structures that ensure the costs and benefits of trade are distributed unfairly within countries.(see ABC's of Political Economy, 176-207)