However, as the head of a company that is growing at 6 per cent in the US but 12 per cent in the rest of the world, Mr Immelt is acutely aware that the idea that underpins GE’s future — globalisation — does not have support from the people. “If globalisation was put up for a popular vote . . . it would be voted down,” he says. “People don’t like it. They are afraid. CEOs cannot take globalisation for granted.”

This is an increasingly common refrain of globe-trotting chief executives, who fear that trade liberalisation is not only losing its mandate, but also its momentum: they have watched as Russia has renationalised energy assets, Venezuela has clumsily done the same, the US has fended off the Chinese purchase of Unocal and India has bought companies abroad but kept its domestic market heavily protected.

Rising income inequality is adding to a sense of disenchantment with global capitalism. Mr Immelt says that the growing gap between top earners and bottom earners is chiefly caused by the hollowing out of the manufacturing sector, as high-wage industrial jobs are replaced by low-paid service jobs. However, he forecasts that the issue — the super-rich and the new politics of envy — will loom large over the 2008 US presidential election.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Globalization • * Economics, Politics • * International News & Commentary • England / UK

1. John B. Chilton wrote: It’s worth thinking about globalization in terms of the church as well. It has facilitated the effective alliance of conservative Episcopalians and foreign Anglican bishops who share their aims. At the same time there is the kind of globalization that other Episcopalians view positively in terms of the Anglican Communion—the diversity and celebration of cultures it embraces. Miranda Hasset’s book discusses these two at length: http://www.amazon.com/Anglican-Communion-Crisis-Dissidents-Anglicanism/dp/069112518X July 3, 10:08 am | [comment link]

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