Globalization left millions behind as a policy and transformed the world politically, a new book argues.

[UpInArms]

1. Sounds like the sum of the book is weak tea

Yet these individuals and communities are largely absent from his book. So too is any extended discussion of trade’s disparate impact on different ethnic groups, much less between genders. Lynch’s policy prescriptions also feel unsatisfying: He recommends rebuilding our tattered social safety net via higher corporate tax rates and a renewed commitment to ending tax avoidance. For Lynch, proposing policies seems less important than forcing a reckoning with a world of borderless capital, an all-powerful China, and populist tumult.

Inevitably, Lynch’s book leads him back to Bill Clinton, the man who started it all. While he accepts that globalization hasn’t worked out the way he’d hoped, he regards the backlash as a combination of economic, social, and cultural factors. In his mind, there’s still time to find a new script for globalization, and this time, to do right by the American worker. “The obligation of the government is to minimize loss and find people something else to do so we can keep growing.”