Economic Globalization and Institutions of Global Governance: Comments and Debate (I)

Abstract

Reading Keith Griffin is like listening to a Frenchman presenting his ideas in three parts and ten minutes. It is clear, brilliant, and a delight for the ear, but once it is over you scratch your head and wonder what exactly the meaning of it all was. In the recent article by Griffin published in this journal (Griffin, 2003), there were two instances where I scratched my head. The first instance was when he pleaded in favour of mobility of the factor labour, not only of labour in general, but of unskilled labour in particular in order to reduce global income inequalities. The second instance occurred when he argued in favour of a compulsory tax and transfer mechanism in replacement of the old-style foreign aid that is 'nearly obsolete'. ON MIGRATIONKeith Griffin rejuvenated me by thirty-five years when I read the passage on labour mobility. The first image that arose in my mind was that of Harry Johnson's 1968 article in which he presented an international model of labour flows. He argued that from the point of view of world income, less migration from low to high income countries occurs than is economically optimal. In other words, his central thesis was that free flows of labour from poorer to richer countries would optimize world income. Admittedly, Johnson's model was written in the raging debate of the 1960s about the pros and cons of the brain drain and, therefore, applies to highly educated personnel. But clearly, the model is equally valid for unskilled labour and would reflect Griffin's position thirty-five years later.Don Patinkin (1968) reacted to the Johnson model by noting that industrial countries would not adopt the viewpoint about the free flow of resources *After the publication of an article with this title by Keith Griffin in Development and Change 34(5), a number of responses and comments were received by the Editors. The first of these comments are presented here; more will follow in forthcoming issues of Development and Change. Development and Change 35(3): 547-555 (2004).