Summers' Times, and the Livin' Is Easy

It’s a bad time to be a member of the global middle class, Lawrence H. Summers writes in his debut column for the Financial Times today. The former Harvard president says that “ordinary, middle-class workers and their employers—whether they live in the American midwest, the Ruhr valley, Latin America or eastern Europe—are left out” of the gains generated by globalization.

The column, titled “The global middle cries out for reassurance” and uploaded to the paper’s Web site yesterday, argues that globalization is benefiting low-income countries—chiefly China—as well as “those who already own valuable assets.” But “everyone else has not fared nearly as well,” Summers says in the 950-word article.

He extols the virtues of free trade and urges policymakers to “improve on the outcomes [the market system] naturally produces.”

Summers signed onto the Financial Times in September, agreeing to write a monthly column for the London-based newspaper, which reports a daily circulation of over 480,000 worldwide. Last night, his picture graced the top of the Times’ website—which boasts a monthly readership of 2.7 million unique visitors. His face is superimposed upon a computer mouse and a stock ticker.

Summers also said this summer that he would contribute to the blog Open University on The New Republic’s Web site—but he has yet to post to that page. And on Oct. 19, he joined the hedge fund firm D.E. Shaw as a managing director—a development that prompted fellow Open University blogger Daniel Drezner to write on the site, “SO THIS IS WHY LARRY’S BEEN MIA.”

Summers, who is on sabbatical this year, holds the Eliot University professorship at Harvard and maintains office at the Business School and the Kennedy School of Government.