This is what the neo-liberal economic program has been doing all my life. "Free-trade" and globalization just mean that companies deploy lobbyists to DC and state houses to write legislation that picks winners and losers, erect barriers for some and tear them down for others, and concentrate wealth in the hands of a tiny few while spreading enough of it around to the professional managerial class and petit-bourgeoisie to keep the whole machine running. Blue-collar workers were put in direct competition with low wage workers overseas while white-collar workers were protected from foreign competition, unionization declined under constant attack, and middle-class wages stagnated while coastal and urban elites pulled away. Middle-class people were mollified, however, by rising living standards courtesy of cheap goods delivered by long supply chains connecting far-flung places with big box stores that landed right on the outskirts of their little towns, by the good graces of their hardworking counterparts toiling away in those far-flung places, and by large trade surpluses and easy money. And, it did have social consequences: the withering of small town life, the atomization of community, and the working-class revolts of the last 20 years as the machine started to sputter.<p>It's important to note that it doesn't have to be this way. This isn't the natural order of things. There IS no "natural order of things." This is a choice. You're free to like that choice if it suits you, but nobody is obliged to like it, and if you don't there is a tried-and-true program for forcing other choices: organize, unionize, and galvanize.