Reading polemical screeds like Naomi Klein's No Logo and comparing them to the reasoned analysis provided by Thomas Friedman's Lexus and the Olive Tree and other similar works, it becomes clear that not only is globalized capitalism inevitable, it's ultimately beneficial to the world as a whole once periods of structural and cyclical economic change are gotten through, there's a light at the end of the tunnel leading to a better world.
Protectionism doesn't work. 'Fair trade' is a farce. And NAFTA is, on the whole, one of the best things that ever happened to America. The socialist welfare states of Europe are stagnating under their own weight. It's become clear to any thinking person that free-market capitalism, when properly regulated for issues such as consumer protection and environmental conservation, is the best way to run a national economy.
Why is it that some leftists can't see the writing on the wall? Don't they know that globalization is inevitable, and we should be less worried about stopping it than about cushioning individual members of society who will become unemployed by structural changes in the economy?
Specialization of trade on a global scale should be a leftist's wet dream -- it'll do more good for all those marginalized peoples of the world they pretend to care about than all the sit-ins and protests for hollow causes they attend.
Yet somehow, there's this innate resistance. Usually expressed with empty slogans, such as "Everything has been globalized except our consent". Where there is no logic, rhetoric takes its place.
I guess, the question is -- will progressives, leftists, and the world's thinking peoples in general finally give globalization the true, deep embrace it deserves?