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Time to Take a Second Look at Our "Free Trade" Agreements
By Mark Weisbrot
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This op-ed was distributed by McClatchy Tribune Information Services on
September 17, 2008, and published in the/ Fresno Bee /and other
newspapers/./ If anyone wants to reprint it, please let CEPR know, by
replying to this message.
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"Battle in Seattle
<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=3JnODs6uY8%2FRyIbVVSgakcpMKg44wPAX>"
opens September 19-26 in movie theaters across the country, a rare
combination of high drama and history-making events as they actually
happened when thousands of protesters shut down the World Trade
Organization in Seattle nearly nine years ago. It has an all-star cast
including Oscar-winning beauty Charlize Theron, Woody Harrelson,
Michelle Rodriguez, Ray Liotta, and Andre Benjamin (of Outkast hip-hop
fame). Perhaps most unusual for a feature film, it gives the protestors
credit for what they accomplished: they changed the debate over what has
been deceptively marketed as "free trade." They were beaten and jailed,
choked with tear gas and shot with rubber bullets, but they succeeded in
raising awareness about what these organizations and international
agreements really do.
Prior to the Seattle protests in 1999, almost nobody knew that the World
Trade Organization was not so much about "free trade" as about creating
new rights and privileges for corporations at the expense of the
environment, public health, and the public interest in general. The WTO
and NAFTA's provisions on "intellectual property," for example, are the
exact opposite of free trade, according to standard economic analysis.
They increase the cost of medicines by extending and protecting the
patent monopolies of big pharmaceutical companies and stifling
international free trade in generic medicines, some of which are
desperately needed in developing countries.
The debate has widened and now the Democratic presidential nominee,
Senator Barack Obama, has proposed to renegotiate NAFTA. And why not?
This agreement was approved in 1993, before anyone knew what was in it.
Among other things, it contained "sleeper" provisions that enabled
corporations, for the first time, to sue governments directly for
environmental regulation that affects their bottom line.
We also have nearly 15 years of experience with NAFTA and it clearly did
not deliver on most of its promises. It was sold as a job creator, but
the United States has actually lost jobs, especially in manufacturing,
as our trade deficit with Mexico has grown. Even more importantly, NAFTA
has helped perpetuate the downward pressure on wages that have made the
United States a much more unequal society over the last three decades.
From 1973-2007, wages in the United States barely grew at all, as
compared to a 74 percent increase from 1948-1973.
This change in the economy is partly the result of subjecting the
majority of the American labor force - the more than 70 percent that do
not have a college degree - to increased international competition,
while maintaining protectionism for highly paid professionals such as
lawyers, doctors, and upper management. It is also what standard
economic theory would predict. Yet almost every newspaper editorial
board in the country has someone who took an Econ 101 course and thinks
they learned that increasing trade must be good because it makes
"countries" better off. The late A.M. Rosenthal, a long-time /New York
Times/ editor and columnist, summed it up while NAFTA was being debated
in Congress: "how they would howl, those journalistic and academic
supporters of NAFTA who have shown so little care, compassion or
understanding about the fears of working people who might lose their
jobs, how they would howl if their own jobs were in danger ."
Unfortunately NAFTA does not appear to have helped Mexico either, where
growth since it was implemented in 1994 has been sluggish, wages
stagnant, and hundreds of thousands of families displaced from farming
as they were forced to compete with U.S. agriculture.
NAFTA did, however, increase trade. But trade is not an end in itself;
the goal is to improve people's living standards.
So by all means, let's renegotiate NAFTA - and the WTO agreement too.
We're likely to end up with better agreements now that people know
something about what is being negotiated.
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Mark Weisbrot
<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=T0O%2FIZKQBOuQCPMG2ie2ispMKg44wPAX>
is Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in
Washington, D.C. (www.cepr.net).
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Center for Economic and Policy Research, 1611 Connecticut Ave, NW, Suite
400, Washington, DC 20009
Phone: (202) 293-5380, Fax: (202) 588-1356, Home: www.cepr.net
<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=TVD4Cf2WB1lJ53FileFKGspMKg44wPAX>
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--
Michael A. Lebowitz
Professor Emeritus
Economics Department
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6
Director, Programme in 'Transformative Practice and Human Development'
Centro Internacional Miranda, P.H.
Residencias Anauco Suites, Parque Central, final Av. Bolivar
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