Week 15 Discussion — Has Globalization Been a Net Good? — Traditional alternative (no AI)
Instructors: publish this instead of the adaptive version if you prefer, and unpublish or delete the adaptive one.
Hook
A port town gains jobs from the same trade that closes a mill town's looms, and over the same decades the World Bank counts far fewer people in extreme poverty. Each side of this week's question can point to something real, which is exactly what makes it worth arguing.
Your discussion question — choose Option A or Option B; they carry the same weight and the same rubric, and you say which you picked.
Option A: Has globalization, the growing flow of goods, money, people, and ideas across borders, been a net good? Take a position, use the two documented findings about trade (aggregate gains and distributional costs) and the World Bank's poverty count as evidence without reading a correlation as a cause, and state at full strength the strongest case for the other side.
Option B: A made-up country (illustrative) can join a trade agreement that its economists expect to bring aggregate gains, while the agreement is also expected to close the main employer in two of its textile towns. Should the country join, and on what terms? Take a position, label which of your premises is empirical and which is normative, and state the strongest case for the other side as its defenders would put it.
There is no single right answer. Thoughtful people who accept the same facts disagree about how much a concentrated loss should count against a spread-out gain; your job is to argue your side well and to state the other side fairly.
Expectations
Activity format: one initial post followed by two substantive peer replies. Plan on about 45 minutes across the two deadlines; your instructor sets both due dates in Canvas.
Your initial post — by the first due date (early in the module week):
- Say which option you chose.
- State your position in one clear sentence.
- For Option A, use the two documented findings about trade, aggregate gains and distributional costs, and the World Bank's count with its line and its years, and say what the count does not show. For Option B, name the aggregate gain and the distributional cost in the made-up agreement and say how you weigh them.
- Give at least one reason, and label each premise you rely on as empirical or normative.
- State the strongest case for the other side, as its own defenders would put it, before you answer it.
- Use at least two of this week's terms (political economy, mixed economy, comparative advantage, opportunity cost, trade policy, aggregate gains, distributional costs, free trade, managed trade, poverty, inequality, within-country inequality, International Poverty Line, collective-action problem, globalization) correctly, and cite poverty figures only from this week's pinned World Bank count and line.
- Length: roughly 150–250 words if written. You may instead record your post as audio or video (about two minutes) and attach a transcript; both forms are scored by the same rubric.
Your replies — by the second due date (the end of the module week):
- Reply substantively to at least two classmates.
- A substantive reply does more than agree: check whether a poster has kept aggregate gains apart from distributional costs, test whether a premise labelled empirical could be checked, ask whether a correlation has been read as a cause, or state the side the poster did not take at its strongest. "Nice point!" on its own does not count.
What a strong post looks like:
I chose Option B, and I argue the made-up country should join only if it funds help for the two textile towns first. My premise that the agreement brings aggregate gains is empirical, and so is my premise that the two towns will lose their main employer. My premise that a government owes the hardest-hit towns support before it collects the gains is normative, and it is the claim I am defending. The strongest case on the other side is the free-trade case: the gains are large and spread across every household, and tying them to conditions risks losing them.
Notice how it takes a side, keeps the two findings apart, labels premises by kind, and states the other side fairly before answering it. That is the bar.
Participation rubric
This discussion is worth 10 points. The three criteria below look at your initial post and your peer replies.
| Criterion | Strong | Developing | Missing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quality of the initial post (4 pts) | A clear position on globalization or on the made-up agreement, with the trade findings or the poverty count used accurately, premises labelled by kind, and the other side stated at its strongest | A position is present, but a finding or figure is used loosely, the premises are unlabelled, or the other side is weakened | Missing, off-topic, or no reasoning about the question |
| Use of course concepts (3 pts) | Uses this week's terms precisely, keeps aggregate gains apart from distributional costs, and never reads the poverty decline as proof of a cause | Uses a term loosely or with a small error | No course terms, or used incorrectly |
| Engagement with peers (3 pts) | Two or more substantive replies that extend or fairly challenge a classmate's reasoning | One substantive reply, or replies that only agree | No replies, or "I agree" with nothing added |
Post early if you can — the best threads happen when people have time to reply before the second due date.
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