by Nomad
Western corporations and economists regularly promote the idea that trade with China has had, and will have, a civilizing effect on the institutions there. As adjunct scholar Stuart Anderson writes
“U.S. corporations act as a liberalizing force, helping to strengthen the private sector, establishing alternative centers of power, and creating subtle but important pressures for democratic reforms. They also tend to raise wages and labor standards in the countries in which they operate.”Regardless of the merits of the statement, Anderson as a former director at the Cato Institute is hardly an unbiased scholar. The Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. by Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the oil conglomerate Koch Industries, Inc.
