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The Race To The Bottom: Why A Worldwide Worker Surplus And Uncontrolled Free Trade Are Sinking American Living Standards Paperback – August 31, 2002

by Alan Tonelson (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 20 ratings
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With the end of the 1990s economic boom, The Race to the Bottom deftly explores how the United States has entered a no-win global competition in which the countries with the lowest wages, weakest workplace safety laws, and toughest repression of unions win investment from the U.S. and Europe. Tonelson analyzes how the entry of such population giants as China, India, and Mexico into the global market has accelerated the erosion of wages and labor standards around the world. And he describes how an ever-larger share of this low-wage competition is hitting not just sectors like apparel and toys, but also many of America's highest wage industries like aerospace and software. Tonelson explains why the re-education and retraining programs touted by many political leaders offer little but false hopes to most U.S. workers as he outlines the real decisions Washington needs to make to ensure long-term prosperity for the U.S. and the rest of the world. Updated with a new prologue from the author.
Previous page
  1. Print length
    248 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publication date
    August 31, 2002
  4. Dimensions
    6 x 0.63 x 9 inches
  5. ISBN-10
    0813340241
  6. ISBN-13
    978-0813340241
  7. Lexile measure
    1580L
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"...all of us need to get informed, and The Race to the Bottom is certainly a good place to start." -- Inside Business

"...provocative and should lead to further debate about how we should engage the global economy." -- New York Times

"A well-informed and often witty assault." -- Wilson Quarterly

"[Alan Tonelson is] probably the most significant economist spreading the nationalist gospel." -- The New Republic

About the Author

Described in the New Republic as "probably the most significant economist spreading the nationalist gospel," Alan Tonelson has been active in national trade politics for a decade. A Research Fellow at the United States Business and Industry Council, he lives in Washington, D.C.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Basic Books; 2nd edition (August 31, 2002)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 248 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0813340241
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0813340241
  • Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1580L
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.5 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.63 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 20 ratings

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Alan Tonelson

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Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
20 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Bill Runyan
5.0 out of 5 stars Frightening
Reviewed in the United States on October 9, 2002
Verified Purchase
This book details the depressing details of globalization, and debunks the promises of free trade, like Mexico being a huge market(it isn't), most workers that lose their factory jobs would get new and improved high tech jobs(they haven't), and we'll do the high tech stuff and the Third World will do the low tech(not true). We are living in an age where business can relocate almost anywhere. Our corporations are dumping our highest paying jobs overseas and/or importing Third World workers to do them (like Indian programmers). The result is a slowly sinking standard of living. Between mass immigration and globalization it appears we may be at the beginning of a new age of poverty.
For "fun" scroll down to the first review of the book, down to the guy that gave it one star (apparently after reading only part of chapter one). Print it out and keep it with this book. After you read the book, re-read his review and then see if you can answer the question: What planet are the globalists living on?
This just in: According to NPR, one of the last textile factories in the US closed on October 22, 2002. It was a fancy high-end shirt factory in Maine. It had been in business for decades. The women there worked so fast that their hands were just a blur. Not fast enough apparently, as they couldn't compete with the sweat shops of the Third World. (NPR said "foreign competition") Some of the women had worked there for twenty years and cried when they left. I seem to remember the globablists saying that foreigners only took jobs Americans didn't want. Perhaps those women were just crying tears of joy.
80 people found this helpful
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crash worship
5.0 out of 5 stars Well written road map into a cul de sac.
Reviewed in the United States on January 13, 2016
Verified Purchase
My gf pointed this out and I can see her point, but the book does a great job of explaining what been happening to economic prosperity in the US. However , not the authors fault, now that I know, what can I do about it? The issues are too macro for individuals to have an affect on changing the current trend. I wanted to understand what occurred and the book does that well.

I've searched around and read more from Tonelson after this book was published and the author continues to along the same lines drawn well in this book. I feel the book is still quite current given what it addresses.
4 people found this helpful
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Ron A.
5.0 out of 5 stars If you want to know what’s been happening to the US, read this book.
Reviewed in the United States on February 14, 2022
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If you want to know what’s been happening to the US, read this book.
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Andrew J. Givens
2.0 out of 5 stars Fails to deliver on it's shock-value title.
Reviewed in the United States on February 27, 2004
Verified Purchase
"The Race To The Bottom" fails to deliver on it's shock-value title.

Author Tonelson provides considerable detail that demonstrate the
increase in job exports from US, yet still concludes that "of the
1990s, manufacturing wages ... grew ... 2.9 percent after adjusting for inflation" - pg. XIII. It was GREW, not shrank.
On page 48: "large influxes of legal and illegal imigrants into the United States have forced many of America's loweset income workers into a race to the bottom of the wage scale". Note that the AVERAGE worker is in fair shape. Finally, on page 137: "The race to the bottom is only the worst and most important symptom, not the cause, of the global economy's problems."
The main thrust of the facts presented betray the book's title:
that dispite the truth that job export has had a deflationary
effect on US wages, those wage losses have been minimal. The facts presented would better name a book "downward wage pressure" - but of course that title would not sell many books.
Not a waste of time, but by itself this book paints an incomplete
picture. "The Dollar Crises" by Richard Duncan is better, and with "Tommorrow's Gold" by Marc Faber fill the most of void. Add
"Globalizaation and It's Discontents" by Joseph Stiglitz and a
much clearer view is created of the crazy world economy that we
must deal with.
10 people found this helpful
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Did you know a THIRD WTC building fell on 911?
5.0 out of 5 stars good book from a good author
Reviewed in the United States on November 14, 2018
Verified Purchase
For anyone with admiration for Mr. Al Gore and all the good he is doing now; regarding the topic of this book, please recall he was the cheerleader for NAFTA when it was being proposed. Another word for NAFTA is free trade, which is NEVER good for the producer or seller of a product.
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Virgil Bierschwale
5.0 out of 5 stars Required Reading
Reviewed in the United States on November 29, 2014
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Only book I have found so far that accurately describes what is happening to our economy.
Should be required reading at all high schools and colleges and corporate boardrooms and political offices
3 people found this helpful
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J. Johnson
5.0 out of 5 stars No better book for understanding the truth about "free trade
Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2004
I have ready many books about globalization and its effects, but Alan Tonelson's "The Race to the Bottom: Why a Worldwide Worker Surplus and Uncontrolled Free Trade are Sinking American Living Standards" is the ONLY book to explain the truth behind globalization. If the US public understood just simple facts, like the difference between producer goods and consumer goods, it would be clear why the US has the most massive trade deficit in history; and the US public would demand that congress act to stop the fast track legislation given to the president. (This is being carried out now by Bush, but was negotiated under Clinton. In other words, both parties are complicit in the destruction of the US middle class.)

As Tonelson says, "Current globalization policies have plunged the great majority of U.S. workers into a great worldwide race to the bottom, into a no-win scramble for work and livelihoods with hundreds of millions of their already impoverished counterparts across the globe. In addition, by sapping the earnings power of U.S. consumers, who are almost single-handedly propping up the world economy despite their sagging earnings, continuing this race could all too easily bring the global financial house of cards tumbling down."

Tonelson doesn't merely make a statement like this, he proves it with expert economic analysis that he explains clearly to the lay public.

Read this book and act on it, before the U.S. middle-class is further eroded.
21 people found this helpful
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