John Sharke:
>There is an understanding by unionists in both the North and the
> South that a corporate promoted "free" trade deal is not going to help
> working or poor people. Some will improve their standard of living in the
> developing countries, the usual elites that will always benefit from
> whatever deals they decide to accept on "behalf" of their people...
Foreign corporate investment can, and has, helped poor working people. Much
of the growth of Canada and other former colonial countries has depended on
such investment. A considerable proportion of the jobs held by poor people
in countries such as Brazil depend on foreign investment. A series of
recent articles in the Globe and Mail described new income and wealth
creation based on high tech investment in southern India, historically one
of the poorest region of the country. Ireland has certainly benefited. If
the resources, including intellectual resources, are there, and people in
authority are socially motivated and not self-serving, sound development can
occur. As you point out, much depends on the elites. Oil in places like
Nigeria and the Sudan, where only elites appear to benefit, is a case in
point.
>As an aside, I think a good case can be made that the high standards of
> living in the developed world are a direct result of extra parliamentary
> actions taken by unions and other supporting civil society movements over
> the last 150 years. The corporations didn't stop putting children in mines
> or locking women in sweat shops out of a humanitarian desire to improve
the
> lot of working people...they did it because they were forced to do it by
> years of labour actions and extra parliamentary presure...
I would partly agree with you here, but only partly. Among early
capitalists, Robert Owen (1771-1858) and his New Lanark Cotton Mills played
a large role in improving the lot of labour. During the industrial
revolution in general, a considerable part of the movement toward better
working conditions came from the upper classes. Unions, as distinct from
guilds, first became a political force addressing social issues in the
second half of the 19th Century. They were at their most powerful when
goods production dominated the industrial structure of the advance world.
Their power has diminished because the industrial structure has moved away
from goods production into areas which are much more difficult to organize.
I would still stick to my point that unions in Canada and the US don't like
instruments like NAFTA and the FTAA because they make it easier to move job
creating capital to low wage parts of the world, further undercutting their
power base.
>Over all as others have been saying in this thread the democracy clause is
> window dressing in direct response to public pressure in the
streets...from
> where I am coming from the people in the streets are our brightest and
best
> and the real hope for a civilization based on other values that the
> corporate bottom line.
My own inclination is to rename the Democracy Clause the "Hypocrisy Clause".
The notions that all of the governments that met in Quebec City are
democracies in any real sense is complete nonsense. Many of them, perhaps
most, consist of the elite group which happens to hold power at the
particular time, and which is often closely watched by the military. The
vast majority of the people they govern, usually dirt poor, has little to
say about national affairs. Often, the only effective pressure on such
governments comes from rebel groups like the Zapatistas in Mexico. To
assess whether such governments are sufficiently "democratic" to be members
of the FTAA club by the single criterion of periodic elections is sheer
hypocrisy.
Ed Weick
