Why is globalization a good thing? Thomas Barnett says that globalization is good because it connects a country with the rest of the world economy. His studies indicate that war is an issue in the non-integrated gap, but has almost disappeared in the connected, globalized economy. So, globalization reduces violence and leads to peace.

Why should free trade be the ultimate goal? Because it leads to the greatest efficiency of production. In other words, it makes things cheap for the consumer. Of course, it also brings down labor rates. That's bad for producers.

In the end, globalization and free trade are probably inevitable. What's not inevitable is how fast we get there. There's no reason why we in the U.S. have to export jobs as fast as we've been doing it.

What's also not inevitable is that free trade has to be unfair. We can band together to set the rules for trade, even in a free market. It's difficult, but not undoable. A good first step would be to get corporate money out of the Democratic Party to the extent possible.