Trade makes many folks materially better off by enabling a local abundance of resources or skills to be shared across a wider area. However, increased trade often worsens economic inequality and depletes and pollutes the environment faster than would otherwise happen. Therefore, eco-localists see trade as a mixed benefit whose unintended negative impacts must be carefully managed.

Globalization of trade raises the stakes of both benefits and risks. On the risk side of the ledger, taken to the extreme, it leads to a world in which everything is for sale, all resources are depleted, pollution is everywhere, labor is exploited to the maximum degree, and everything is owned by a tiny number of super-rich investors and entrepreneurs.

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