Ian Murray wrote:
>>>
>> Yes. Harkin's claim was that the bill would improve conditions in
>> Bangladesh--would make the Bangladeshi government straighten up and
>> fly right. He was wrong.
>>
>> If Harkin had tied his bill to increased development aid for
>> Bangladesh, I would think better of him...
>
> Brad, would it have gotten out of committee if he and his legislative aids had
> written it right?
>
ian, given the point that brad seems to be making, your response does
not redeem senator harkin, since it implies that he proposed a law
that made the lives of bangladeshi children worse, because he could
not get the "right" version of the law out of committee. either the
measurement of the condition of children in bangladesh today is
wrong, or their status today is not the result of the law, or the
result is an unexpected consequence of the law. the latter casts the
anti-globalism activists' intentions in a good light, if only at the
cost of making them bad predictors ("the path to hell is paved with
good intentions" and all that rot), which i guess is krugman's
point.
or are you arguing that the bad consequences (if true) were a known
result but part of a larger strategy of taking short term pain for
long-term gains?
while harkin's position may not be defensible, i think the person,
whom brad was responding to, had a possibly valid critique of
krugman's logic (the critique being that krugman seems to forget
that both prevention of child labour and achievement of health and
education goals are theoretically feasible).
--ravi
