Globalization, trade and technology not to blame for four decades of stagnant US wage

[stpioc]

Here are a couple simple propositions:

• Capitalism brings revolutionary chance
  
• Which is why conservatism and market fundamentalism are really odd bedfellows
  
• Globalization is simply the extension of capitalism on a world scale, with trade, capital and information flows crossing borders, it's not different in kind
  
• Yet there is a powerful backlash against globalization, especially trade on the right, which is odd
  

The change brings dislocation, winners and losers, but it is generally believed by economist that the net benefits are solidly positive, that is, in principle the winners should be able to compensate the losers, and still be better off. 

This points to a type welfare state which builds a safety net for the losers and enable them to deal with the change through active labor market policies like retraining. 

The US coal industry is buckling under the advent of shale gas and the fracking revolution (not Obama policies, as some have it). Amazon can slowly suck the life out of retail outlets, malls, and inner cities, etc. etc. This is all change from within. New business models leverage the change and compound the winners and losers:

If you were looking to have fun with some friends 50 years ago, you might have gone to a bowling alley. Maybe you would have hung out at a diner or gone to the movies. These were all activities that involved spending a certain amount of money in the local economy. That created opportunities for adults in your town to start and run small businesses. It also meant that a teenager who wanted to find a summer job could find one waiting tables or taking tickets at the movie theater... But the Pokémon Go economy also has some real downsides. One has to do with regional inequality. Nintendo and its partners are rumored to be earning more than $1 million per day from Pokémon Go. That money is flowing away from small and medium cities and toward big technology companies concentrated in big cities.

And obviously Pokémon Go isn’t the only example of this. Amazon is doing something similar in the retail industry, diverting business away from local retailers and sucking cash into its corporate headquarters in Seattle. Companies like Google, Facebook, and Vox Media are drawing ad dollars that previously went to local newspapers and television stations.

Pokémon Go is everything that is wrong with late capitalism - Vox

The reaction to that would not be to shut off from the rest of the world, that hasn't made any country richer, the reply is to protect and enable the losers, a more enabling welfare state.

But of course, this is anathema to market fundamentalists, so they seek bogymen in trade and globalization.