Hm. I've always thought that improving the economies of other nations is in our own ultimate self-interest.

Sure and in the cases where it is in our self-interest then go ahead, but the whole reason we've got this "populist uprising" is because people are looking around and seeing a lot things being done that aren't in their interest.

A change can be very bad for a group within a country, but better for the long-term self-interest of the country as a whole, though.

If a globalization measure pushes a large number of Americans out of jobs temporarily, it could be the basis of such a "populist uprise", but couldn't it be better for the country as a whole if it opens up new areas for economic growth, even on a purely self-interested level?

And couldn't part of the gain for America be in building up a prosperous nation with trading ties? Not to mention the lower risk of conflict with another nation with whom America has such ties?

You know it's strange because I can only ever find people arguing this when they know they won't be the ones to be out of a job. Aka this forum is pretty open to the idea of people being displaced but go check out some of the threads here about H1Bs, there's a lot of vehement opposition there. Or for a hypothetical, imagine we were able to import or outsource our politicians to cheaper politicians in India. How quickly do you think that market would be closed off? Yet we abstract ourselves away from the problem and declare that maybe if all these people suffer we'll be better off for it in the end. In society we make those tradeoffs, that's reality but once we start sacrificing more and larger groups surely we come to a point where we realize maybe it's not actually worth it?

> You know it's strange because I can only ever find people arguing this when they know they won't be the ones to be out of a job.

True. You've pretty much identified the nature of special interest groups and why they have so much power.

Rational self interest? Heresy!

We must ride the train of pathological altruism to the very end!

Ironically, this religion of globalism is a crude form of Christianity, with none of the pretty prose. The original sin of success must be paid for by eternal self-flagellation.

Even more interestingly, this new religion has only taken root in the west, which has mostly abandoned traditional religious dogma. Perhaps pathological altruism is inherent in those of western genetic origin? The non-western world appears to have none of these hangups regarding their past successes. I don't see Japanese and Chinese leaders flooding their nation with immigrant labor to atone for their recent economic gains while demonizing their own people for past sins.

Fascinating indeed.