Apparently a PhD in Economics Doesn't Teach You How to Understand People

Dr. Pankaj Ghemewat is a man of means.

Having never met him, how would I know that? Because he began his episode of Harvard’s HBR Ideacast by talking about his collection of custom-made cufflinks.

Dr. Ghemewat described how men in his professional class have very few options of distinguishing themselves based on appearance, and because of that he chooses to wear cufflinks designed with a globalization theme. For example, he has one pair of cufflinks that look like globes. One cufflink features an image of the western hemisphere, while the other features an image of the eastern hemisphere.

While Dr. Ghemewat is not Bezos/Musk “I-shall-remake-the-world-in-my-own-image” rich, financially speaking, he does more than okay. He should. Dr. Ghemewat graduated from Harvard at 19 before earning his own PhD (also from Harvard) at 22.

Besides being a collector of globalization-themed cufflinks, Dr. Ghemewat is many things. He is a former McKinsey consultant and current economist, strategist, author, and noted globalization expert. Given that one needs to make a little more than $130,000 to be in the top 10% of income earners in the US, it’s safe to say Dr. Ghemewat is one of the 10%.

However, one thing he is most likely not is a regular Walmart shopper.

Yet, on his episode of Ideacast, Dr. Ghemewat—like many defenders of globalization—was quick to invoke Walmart as a defense against trade policies he deems protectionist. Specifically, Dr. Ghemewat says “It’s not really the top 10% of the income distribution that goes to shop at Walmart… which is one of the reasons why I find some of the populist anger against globalization a little bit, not only misplaced, but self-defeating.”

It is an economist’s way of saying your average Walmart shopper is not smart enough to know what’s in their own best interest.

Like the pro-globalization Walmart argument, anti-globalization advocates can make simplistic arguments. The struggles of working-class Americans are not all China’s fault. A study by Ball State University found that 85% of recent manufacturing job loss in America between 2000-2010 can be attributed to technology, not trade.

However, invoking Walmart in defense of globalization is not just simplistic.

It’s also condescending and offensive.

The people Ghemewat argues will lose the most from protectionism understand that there is more to the world than a bin full of $3.99 Colin Farrell DVDs. They may not put it that way, but many have an understanding that an economy that makes them dependent on Walmart—for the food they consume, the Christmas presents they buy, and in some cases, the jobs they occupy—is a broken economy.

The “cheap stuff at Walmart” defense of globalization is a little like feudal landlords asking an uprising of serfs, “If this system is overthrown, where will you live?”

To which the serf’s answer would be, “In the castle I take from you.”

The Walmart defense of globalization inherently separates society into two groups:

Those who are educated enough to know globalization is a good thing because they benefit from an open, knowledge-based economy, and those who should know globalization is a good thing because otherwise those Colin Farrell DVDs would cost a lot more than $3.99.

I have lived parts of my life in both groups.

As a college-educated adult, my business is dependent on an open, knowledge-based economy.

As a child, I hated wearing Rustler jeans.

(If you don’t know what Rustler jeans are, they are Walmart’s knock-off version of Wrangler jeans. To bastardize a joke from Jeff Foxworthy, if you don’t know what Wranglers are—or who Jeff Foxworthy is—you might be one of the elite all the pundits are talking about.)

Like a lot of people who once wore Rustlers, I never viewed my family’s reliance on Walmart—despite my parents both working long hours—as a sign the world was working the way it should. Getting made fun of for shopping at Walmart as a 13-year-old boy still haunts me. I wear the ghost of Walmart’s crappy version of Reebok pumps every time I rage against the machine in an article like this.???

The tendency of economists and pro-globalization pundits to invoke Walmart as a defense of globalization is also incredibly cynical. It isn’t often you hear Harvard PhDs and collectors of expensive cufflinks invoking Walmart as a defense of anything.

Personally, I believe a more globalized world was inevitable, and even if it wasn’t, putting the world back in a box would create its own brand of misery and unintended consequences.

However, increased global trade and policies that keep Harvard PhDs in custom cufflinks and the working class in Rustlers are not the same thing. It is completely possible to have a globally connected world while still creating an economy that provides a path to a better life for poor and working-class people. In fact, globalization advocates sometimes make it seem like America was walled off from the rest of the world prior to NAFTA.

There are a lot of Americans who defended and then rebuilt a good chunk of the globe in the 1940s and ’50s who would disagree with that.

For most Americans, the era of rapidly expanding global trade is also the era of wage stagnation and a declining standard of living. If globalization advocates want to convince the working and middle classes that a globalized economy is a better economy, they have to come up with policies that decrease dependency on Walmart—rather than reminding people that they can barely afford to get by as it is.

Otherwise, they may eventually be overthrown.

Just like feudal landlords.?

Jack McKissen is the founder of?McKissen + Company,?and was recently named one of LinkedIn's "Top Voices on Management and Culture".