David Sirota: Why NAFTA Is An Anger Point Fueling The Uprising

[marmar]

from OurFuture.org:



Why NAFTA Is An Anger Point Fueling The Uprising
By David Sirota

June 15th, 2008 - 3:50pm ET


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm home for a day and a half here in Denver before heading out for the Midwestern leg of THE UPRISING book tour.

One of the things I've been finding when talking to groups is a palpable anger at our current trade and globalization policies - an anger from both progressives and conservatives that I meet. And yet, we continue to get this kind of nonsense from Serious Thinkers in major newspapers:

"All discussions of the victims of trade ignore the considerable benefits: the exports we sell and the lower prices for consumers at home. Since poorer Americans spend a higher proportion of their incomes on low-wage imports (shoes from China, for instance), trade can also be seen as favoring the less well off. If only politicians would stop preaching to them otherwise."

In reading this, our reaction should be if only insulated journalists would stop preaching fact-free rhetoric, perhaps we could actually have a discussion about the real impact of our current trade policies.

You'll notice that the author of the piece, Roger Lowenstein, offers no actual facts to back up his assertion that so-called "free" trade "favors the less well off" - other than a flippant Freakonomics-ish reference that seems smart merely by being counterintuitive. Yes, we are led to think - corporate lobbyists are crafting trade deals to help poor people. Of course that has to be true if someone as Serious as Lowenstein is writing something so absurd. If it's that absurd yet in a major newspaper, it just HAS to be true, right?

Wrong.

What Lowenstein and other Serious Trade Thinkers refuse to discuss is how inflation has been outpacing wages during the era of "free" trade. What that empirically proves is that, in fact, ordinary workers are losing out in the "free" trade deal.

The "free" traders' argument says that while NAFTA-style policies drive down wages and eliminate jobs, those policies are ultimately a good bargain for all workers because the wage-cutting, environment-destroying competition brought on by these policies lowers the price of goods. ....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/why-nafta-anger-point-fueling-uprising

[redqueen]

1. K&R

Love this.

It's discouraging to still meet so many people who have no idea what's going on... like children... but they vote.

*sigh*

[Tuesday Afternoon]

2. thanks, marmar. Love your posts! K&R n/t

[marmar]

6. You're welcome.....Workers of the World Unite!

:grouphug:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. Yes, it's mostly the chattering classes who think that "free" trade is just dandy

They're not losing their union jobs and being demoted to 7-11 clerk. Their attitude is that the theory predicts good outcomes, so the theory must be right and all those suffering workers are just "anomalies" or "temporary dislocations."

[KoKo]

4. "....poorer Americans buy their shoes from China."

Roger Lowenstein doesn't seem to know that you can't find any shoes these days that aren't made in China anywhere in America. And, no matter what one pays for them they are crap. All the high end brands are now made in China. But, maybe Lowenstein has his own shoemaker. :eyes: That comment alone makes the guy clueless.

Thanks for the Sirota post. His new book sounds very interesting.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. It's called "the race to the bottom"

As Americans' wages drop, all they can afford is cheap crap from China, which puts even more Americans out of work.

That's why we need a new national infrastructure program in place of the Iraq War, one that will provide living wage jobs for all the displaced blue collar workers and youth who have never held a decent job.

The ripple effects on the economy and the general mood of the country would be incredible.

[KoKo]

10. Yep...Make it Cheaper and use Chemicals and Dyes that kill folks...but it's cheap

and if you can't walk in the shoes.....WTF...you just buy another pair at WalMart for $19.50 on SALE...and if you can't walk in them because they aren't "real leather" and have "stitching" that scrapes your feet when you "walk flex"...what the hell? You only charged $19.00 and some change to buy them. Throw them out and go find some other shoe....while you pay of that $19.00 charge for YEARS that ends up like $100.00 for those shoes you "threw out."

:-(

[havocmom]

5. US workers, FORCED to by imported goods (about all there is) putting themselves out of work

and getting more and more unregulated, uninspected, unsafe goods. How does that favor the poor?

Fucking Lowenstein. May he find nothing but contaminated wheat on his own menu and inferior goods containing lots of lead in his home.

[burythehatchet]

8. How can Free Trade be bad; It's got "free" in it

:shrug:

[alarimer]

9. I blame the Democrats for this.

Bill Clinton signed Nafta into law. But then he was the best Republican President we've ever had. This is what we get when we vote the party line, every single time. The Democrats will continue to sell out the working poor and the very poor every single time until we start holding them accountable too.

[LWolf]

11. I'd recommend this if I could.

Since I can't, I'll just second that.

:(

[KoKo]

12. I'll recommend this...but since you are long time DU poster...why can't you

recommend? New DU Rules, I missed? Or, something else. :shrug:

[LWolf]

14. We can recommend the OP;

not a response to the OP.

I did recommend the OP, but it was the response post I was referring to.

Hi, KoKo1!

:hi:

[KoKo]

13. It started with Reagan's Deregulation...but, sadly, Clinton did NAFTA and

got hit with Repug backlash for winning Presidency...and it's been "downhill" ever since. Bush II managed to roll everything back a few decades....to finish it all off. :-(