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.Most people think Asia is exporting only products, but in factthese countries are also exporting their labor and environmentalpractices.This is the dark side of free trade.It would be a mistaketo demonize free markets.But it would be just as wrong to putthem on a pedestal.America must search for a third way betweendie-hard free traders and unreconstructed protectionists.Trade isa question of interest and not a matter of belief.A nation s tradedoes not necessarily need to be ideologically clean, at least not pri-marily, but it must be useful.Trade issues are no less political thanquestions of environmental protection, national security, anddemilitarization.Fallacy No.4: The tide of globalization automatically lifts all boats.Many authorities have told this to us, and claim that we don thave to worry.This statement may be true in the long run, butfor now it seems to be a fairy tale.It doesn t reflect today s real-ity.Globalization nowadays is an extremely divisive force for theAmerican population.The latest available data from the U.S.Census Bureau published in August 2007 sent a very clear mes-sage: this is the first boom period in American history where the 16 GABOR STEINGARTupper classes go up while significant parts of the middle class godownhill.Although median household income, adjusted for inflation,has not reached the prerecession high of 1999, income inequal-ity is at an all-time high.According to the U.S.Census Bureau,the share of income going to the 5 percent of households withthe highest income has never been greater.They earned morethan 50 percent of the national pretax income in 2006.Thisshould come as no surprise: many businesspeople love today sglobalization more than their own spouses.What they have toldus about great opportunities and win-win situations is true, butit s true mostly for them.They are now living in the shiningcity on a hill, to which Ronald Reagan once hoped to lead theentire nation.But a large segment of the population has become boggeddown along the way.For many Americans, their country hasbecome a shady place down in the valley.About 16 percent of theU.S.population, or 47 million people, lack health insurance.Ninemillion people have been added to the ranks of the uninsured dur-ing the past seven years.It is important to know that about two-thirds of those Americans who became uninsured last year weremembers of middle class households with pretax incomes of$75,000 or more.This phenomenon is all the more surprising when we considerthat the United States in mid-2007 was in the fifth year of an eco-nomic boom, which raises some important questions: what hasreally happened in this country? Where do these new uninsuredpeople come from? Why have their lives developed in this adversedirection? The answer is disturbing: they are mostly members ofthe middle class working for international companies.Their cor-porate leaders have cut back employer-provided coverage over thelast decade to improve the competitiveness of the company.Thisis precisely the paradox of globalization: while the competitive-ness of American companies is on the rise, the standard of livingof the average family is shrinking.Truth number one: globaliza-tion connects people.Truth number two: on the same day, and in THE WAR FOR WEALTH 17the same country, it divides society.Economic growth and socialdecline are no longer mutually exclusive.Fallacy No.5: Globalization is a great work of peace.Many peoplebelieve this.Nations that are economically intertwined do notshoot at one another.That s the great hope.But the new world isby no means more peaceful than the old.Today s victories are wonon the field of business, and from there they are passed on topoliticians and military leaders.Giddy with their almost magicalsuccesses of the last few decades, the prime ministers of China andIndia recently declared that their goal is to bring about a newworld order. Asian countries have already embarked on a mas-sive military buildup, one in which the nuclear warhead is seen asa status symbol of the newly affluent.Despite the international flow of goods and intensive inter-dependence in commerce, the risk of armed conflicts has cer-tainly not diminished.The rise of Asia is accompanied byintense nervousness on the continent itself.Asia s newlyacquired economic strength has boosted the Asians self-confi-dence and intensified their mutual distrust
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