[AA]
At 01:12 19/10/98 -0500, David Kidd wrote:
>Albert wrote:
>>My understanding is that the MAI simply requires that exactly the
>>same standards be applied in these areas to multinational capitalists
as
>>to local capitalists. What's wrong with that? Why tolerate lower
>>standards for environmental protection, labour, health, safety and
human
>>rights when dealing with local capitalists?
[AA]
Albert - the MAI also has a sort-of highest-common-factor approach - all
labour controls (for example) should be set to the lowest possible for
all
countries.
[AL] Where is that "approach" found in the text of the draft treaty?
Is it perhaps item 4 of the Annex:
"4. "Not Lowering Measures"
"A Contracting Party shall not waive or otherwise derogate from, or
offer to waive or otherwise derogate from, its domestic health, safety,
environmental, or labour measures, as an encouragement to the
establishment, acquisition, expansion, operation, management,
maintenance, use, enjoyment and sale or other disposition of an
investment of an investor.*"
[AA]
This is why socialist organisations opposed it long before One
Nation even realised it existed. ON is somethnig of a
johnny-come-lately
in this and other issues.
[AL]
Interesting, earlier David Kidd wrote:
"One Nation was initially the ONLY party opposing the now
discredited MAI.... another plus in my book."
I suspect the difference in perception may arise from the fact that ON
is
itself a "johnny-come-lately" and could not have started opposing the
same things
that "socialist organizations" oppose on this and other issues before it
was formed.
However groups closely connected with the emergence of One Nation have
had a theme of opposing the MAI along with stuff about the Trilateral
commission
etc (also a popular bogey among "socialist organizations") for a long
time.
More importantly "socialist organizations" are something of a
johnny-come-lately
in adopting a nationalist rather than internationalist perspective and
fighting to
conserve the status quo by protectionism (as advocated by right wing
forces as a
response to the last Great Depression for example). Historically
"socialist
organizations" have opposed the status quo and supported development,
confident that the further capitalism develops the closer socialism
becomes. See for example Marx's Speech on Free Trade
and Engels' Introduction to it:
http://www.marx.org/Archive/1848-FT/1888-ft.htm
[AA]
So, the MAI can allow foreign *and* local
capitalists to wind back all sorts of laws. NAFTA forced the Canadian
government to remove a law saying that a carcinogen (can't remember
which!)
cold not be used in making petrol (I think - the exact details are
hazy).
This is a Bad Thing.
[AL] Without less hazy details I wouldn't know whether it was a law
aimed
at actual carcinogen's or a law against using some ingredient used in
Mexican or US petrol
that Canadian petroleum interests thought it might be convenient to
describe
as a carcinogen because it is not used in Canadian petrol. I do not see
how
repeal of the former could conceivably be required by NAFTA. Australia
used to
comply with international trade agreements by not discriminating against
imported
margarine at all - provided of course that it was coloured black.
Is the economic integration of Mexico, Canada and the United States a
"Bad Thing"?
If so, why? That is what NAFTA is about.
[DK]
>The hope is that local capitalists will act in ways more beneficial to
the
>local scene WITHOUT having to be regulated to the umpteenth degree,
simply
[AA]
Ha! In respect of removing discrimination, I have no problems with the
MAI. There's no difference between a capitalist who has the same
passport
as I do and one who does not, and both are deliberately acting against
my
interests. I have nothing in common with notable tax-cheat Citizen
Packer.
I don't evade tax, for starters, and would not seek to.
And as for ex-Citizen Murdoch... who dropped his Australian passport
like a
hot potato when he could make more money from holding an American one,
or
ex-Citizen Skase (do we need any more details?), or Citizen Bond... all
fine upstanding members of the local community.
[AL]
David Kidd's hope would, if one shared it, be at least a logically
coherent
reason for opposing an international agreement the point of which is to
prohibit
discrimination between local and foreign capitalists. Your reasons
amount to
no more than the assertion that the agreement means the opposite of what
it actually says.
Engels' 1888 introduction.url
