a growing debate

Starting in the late 1990's, thousands of people in the US and abroad took to the streets to question the "Washington consensus" -- the idea that the tide of so called "free" trade and economic globalization would "lift all boats". Critics questioned whether those policies were set up to benefit poor people, or just multinational corporations. They also challenged the idea that "growth" as measured by indicators such as GDP, is actually always a good thing. Those economic indicators, skeptics say, don't take into account social and environmental effects of economic development. But in his new book, The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth, Benjamin Friedman -- a leading critic of Ronald Reagan's economic policies-defends growth as a key factor in promoting political freedom and social and economic growth around the world. Tomorrow he joins the Business Shrink to talk about the book.