While the magnitude to which it helps is under debate, the evidence seems to show that globalized capitalism helps the poor, and in fact a majority of the evidence seems to show that it helps them a good deal.

“To the extent that we find a statistically significant relationship between trade liberalization and poverty reduction, the evidence points to faster poverty reduction in states and regions experiencing greater increases in exposure to trade.” (Clain and Mitra 2007)

“The principal empirical results that emerge from this exercise indicate that important indicators of economic freedom such as openness to trade ... are robustly associated with poverty reduction.” Quibria et al. 2003

“…less trade restrictions and larger information flows are robustly associated with lower poverty levels. A likely explanation for the importance of trade restrictions is that these matter for import prices.” Bergh 2014

“Our empirical investigation of the impact of economic reforms, mainly trade reforms but also industrial delicensing, shows that there is a fair amount of evidence in support of the poverty reducing effects of these reforms.” Trade Liberalization, Labor-Market Institutions, and Poverty Reduction: Evidence from Indian States (Ural and Mitra 2006)

Review of the evidence: “We briefly review the recent literature on globalization, and present empirical evidence showing that economic globalization has been correlated with higher economic growth and lower poverty rates.” Spier 2010

“This paper discusses the possible causal relationships and empirical associations between globalization and growth, growth and poverty reduction, and, finally, globalization and poverty reduction. We argue that globalization can contribute much to poverty reduction both directly and by accelerating growth.” Wallack 2004

Review of the evidence: 1. Poverty reduction is mainly driven by growth in per capita income. 2. Trade openness is an important determinant of economic growth. 3. The economic growth associated with trade liberalization is as pro-poor as economic growth in general (meaning that it isn’t economic growth which simply benefits a privileged few). Berg and Krueger (2003)

Review of the evidence:“We argue that there is no simple generalizable conclusion about the relationship between trade liberalization and poverty, and the picture is much less negative than is often suggested. In the long run and on average, trade liberalization is likely to be strongly poverty alleviating, and there is no convincing evidence that it will generally increase overall poverty or vulnerability.” (Winters 2004)

Review of the evidence: “Despite the impossibility to rigorously and unambiguously assert that trade openness is conducive to growth and poverty reduction, the preponderance of evidence supports this conclusion. However, the majority of empirical macro studies also show that the impact of trade on growth and poverty is also generally small and that the causes of indigence are to be found elsewhere. But it is in fact extremely arduous to find evidence that supports the notion that trade protection is good for the poor.” (Li 2012)

“The evidence from individual cases and cross-country analysis supports the view that globalisation leads to faster growth and poverty reduction in poor countries.” Aart and Kraay 2004