So leaving morality and emotions out of it - why does globalization seem to disproportionately benefit the coasts?
Coasts are where most of the cities are. As for where globalization benefits? This question is somewhat oversimplified. There are two factors: the culture/demographic side and the economic side. That is, globalization has economic winners and losers AND cultural consequences.
Obviously there are going to be some winners and some losers, but how did it come to be that the winners are disproportionately concentrated in certain geographic locations?
You might better ask, why did certain geographic locations win? The people have changed. One of the key requirements of globalization is the free movement of labor. Jobs move to where the labor is and labor goes to where the jobs are. A small town has no future when it loses its only factory to Mexico while all its brightest youths go to Silicon Valley and New York City to work in IT, Media, and big Finance and spend lots of time getting drunk and having sex. Once that happens, the small towns left behind either manage to pivot into tourism or an exburban haven for telecommuters, or they just die a long, slow death; kept on life support by Wal Mart while Meth labs and Mexican heroin ravage their communities.
One other important thing to look at, as far as people's attitudes go, is the pace of change and the nature of the change. If a local factory failed because they failed to compete with foreign competition, that would inspire people to figure out a better way to compete. Everyone fails together or succeeds together. But when a local factory is shut down because the owners have decided to cash in on globalization, people are more likely to be upset and feel betrayed and look to government for help.
Coasts are where most of the cities are. As for where globalization benefits? This question is somewhat oversimplified. There are two factors: the culture/demographic side and the economic side. That is, globalization has economic winners and losers AND cultural consequences.
Obviously there are going to be some winners and some losers, but how did it come to be that the winners are disproportionately concentrated in certain geographic locations?
You might better ask, why did certain geographic locations win? The people have changed. One of the key requirements of globalization is the free movement of labor. Jobs move to where the labor is and labor goes to where the jobs are. A small town has no future when it loses its only factory to Mexico while all its brightest youths go to Silicon Valley and New York City to work in IT, Media, and big Finance and spend lots of time getting drunk and having sex. Once that happens, the small towns left behind either manage to pivot into tourism or an exburban haven for telecommuters, or they just die a long, slow death; kept on life support by Wal Mart while Meth labs and Mexican heroin ravage their communities.
One other important thing to look at, as far as people's attitudes go, is the pace of change and the nature of the change. If a local factory failed because they failed to compete with foreign competition, that would inspire people to figure out a better way to compete. Everyone fails together or succeeds together. But when a local factory is shut down because the owners have decided to cash in on globalization, people are more likely to be upset and feel betrayed and look to government for help.