The bankruptcy of New Democrat ideology

[Enrique]

Lind's critique of Miller and the centrists comes later in the article...

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/feature/2010/10/12/matt_miller_michael_lind/index.html

Are critics of the Chinese dictatorship’s mercantilist trade strategy the unwitting enemies of the poor people of the world? Are multinational corporations that transfer production from unionized American workplaces to a low-wage country where independent unions are illegal and dissident democrats like Liu Xiaobao and his wife are jailed the true benefactors of humanity? The answer is yes, according to Matt Miller, a veteran of the Clinton administration who is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a columnist for the Washington Post and the host of an NPR show, "Left, Right and Center." Miller, who at different times describes himself as a centrist or a progressive, wrote an Op-Ed for the Post last week titled "Liberalism’s moral crisis on trade."

Here's my question for American progressives: If you're for the little guy, are you just for American little guys? Or are you for poor underdogs even if they happen to have been born in India or China?

….he trade debate will bring special agony for progressives who see themselves as fighting liberals at home and as global humanists abroad. We're at a hinge in history when it's no longer possible to pretend there's no tension between the two.
Whose side are liberals on? The American people? Or people?

The claim that progressives are the real enemies of the poor at home and abroad is a cliché of conservative rhetoric. In domestic policy, conservatives and libertarians pose as champions of the black poor by claiming that the welfare state is a "welfare plantation" that enslaves blacks, and that the best way to help black unemployment is to eliminate the minimum wage -- arguments that have persuaded few black Americans. In trade policy, conservatives and libertarians argue that child labor laws and environmental regulations in developing countries will only hurt the global poor, and that the offshoring of industry from the U.S. to countries with non-union, low-wage workers is a great benefit to the latter.

Miller repeats this right-wing talking point:

Seen in this light, for example, big business may turn out to be a more "progressive" global force than American labor or government in the next few decades. Why? Because corporate America is generally the strongest voice for the reciprocal free trade and access to markets that poor nations need to thrive.

Matt Miller has enjoyed a successful career in the elite media as the token Democrat who sides with the right on major issues, while maintaining his "centrist" or "progressive" credentials by arguing for slightly higher taxation and universal healthcare in the form of subsidies for private insurance -- positions that are compatible with moderate conservatism.

(...)

[xchrom]

1. just like in europe -- there are dems who want to to unravel the social compact.

privatize.

it's been gaining steam in western politics for quite a while.

[pampango]

2. The efforts to "unravel the social compact" are coming from the right, like Sarkozy in France,

not from the left which is fighting back, again as in France. Though the social compact is still intact in Europe, the right is having some success in trimming it in some countries. Goes to show that the right never rests, so neither can we.

[xchrom]

3. It's a lot more than sarkozy. But yes

The unraveling is met with greater resistance.

[RaleighNCDUer]

4. I like what he's saying, which is real curious as I had been under the

impression that Lind was himself one of the 'New Democrats'.

Was I mistaken, or was he and he has come to understand the ramifications of neo-lib policy and rejects it?

[OHdem10]

5. So it is okay to put America in Poverty and Third World status

so long as we bring the third world countries from abject
poverty to slave wages.

Is he saying OH, but look how much good we have done for
India and China while destroying our own country.

No I am not a Protectionist. Fair trade that is managed
well.

[Edweird]

6. There are enemies of US labor on the Left as well as the Right.

[FredStembottom]

7. Oh for cryin' out loud!

Talk about yer straw men!

These poor nations have BILLIONS of people in them. Why can't China manufacture for the BILLIONS of Chinese?
Because their productive output is siphoned off and shipped here.

Chinese manufacturers will never have to pay the kind of wages that stimulate internal demand (among the BILLIONS of Chinese) as long as they can dump their output on America, receive American profits and simply keep them.

The "little guy" is almost completely circumvented in this process! He goes on at poverty wages forever and China never develops the biggest market of all time: the BILLIONS of Chinese.

On edit: the Billions of people that don't have any of the items shipped here. They are the opposite of a mature economy. But vampire economics keeps that huge, huge market stuck right where it is.