John Ralson Saul: Re-evaluating the Current Approach To Trade and Globalisation

Does globalization actually deliver what we thought it would?

There are a range of choices between free trade and protectionism.  Ideological commitments and purity may prevent a meaningful discussion of the situation.

Is there really a surplus of goods, or is trade organized around a plutocratic economic model that is providing a scarcity of wages for labour?

When local laws are leveled by the economic realities of globalization, can nations retain their own character and choice of government and guiding principles?

Can there be genuine 'free trade' in a world in which only the US is a major military and monetary superpower, owner the world's reserve currency, with Russia and China alone presenting some effective counterbalance, while many other nations, among them much of Europe and Japan, have become essentially incapable of exercising enough military power to defend themselves and preserve order in their own regions except for minor police actions?    Are the assumptions about the benefits of free trade founded on assumptions as unrealistic as those that drove domestic free market policies?

Is global free trade 'lifting all boats,' or merely spawning a proliferation of oligarchs because of its inherently lawless and borderless character?

Although the title of the video is in German, the presentation by JRS is in English.