[DVaut1]

It seems strange that you're willing to concede globalization has created an increased level of wealth disparity; I thought proponents of globalization maintained that decreased barriers to global trade would eventually lead to lower prices for essential consumer goods, more employment and generally higher output and productivity.

If it's the case that neoliberal economists are essentially arguing what I outlined above, then I'm not sure why a 'backlash' due to wealth disparity is inevitable and why any 'compromise' is necessary at all. I certainly haven't seen evidence that there is an an overwhelming anti-economic-liberalization backlash among Americans on the horizon. I'm obviously no fan of the GOP, but given the polling I've seen, I think it would be a mistake to attribute the GOP failures in the last election cycle to dissatisfaction with their economic policies; similarly, I think it would be a mistake to conclude that the recent Democratic successes are indicative of enthusiasm for their economic policies -- and I would suggest that most of the Democratic 'anti-free-market' proposals I see are of the purely cosmetic variety, and are generally relatively benign; i.e., increases to the federal minimum wage.

I'll concede that while most polling indicates that Americans are generally pessimistic about the direction of the country and increasingly 'fearful' of globalization trends like laissez-faire immigration policies and a perceived sense of the costs of 'outsourcing', those same polls indicate Americans are generally satisfied with their own economic lot. Having said that, it certainly may be that many Americans shoulder tremendous amounts of debt and have much of their net worth is tied up in what some consider to be an overinflated housing market -- perhaps a crash in the credit and housing markets may prompt such an anti-market backlash and lead to demands for increased state intervention.

So, given that I'm skeptical such a backlash is imminent short of a catastrophic event, perhaps we can maintain that globalization will generally produce lower prices for goods, higher employment and an increased standard of living, but that some kinds of temporary measures and continued state intervention are necessary to ease the transition where changes wrought by global trade liberalization are especially deleterious.

If so, then I would suggest that any government intervention should be considered just that -- temporary and generally unrestrictive of free markets. Again, if we're confident global economic liberalization truly will be generally beneficial, I'm not sure there's a need to offer many compromises to free-market policies, lest we impede the realization of the benefits from the globalist policies we're simultaneously enacting.