> isn't this whole discussion missing the point in a sense? does
> anyone really believe the u.s. establishment *wants* to impose
> quasi-progressive labor standards on other countries? seems to me
> like the dems' sop to big labor for its support of gore and
> other such favors. why on earth would american transnational capital
> want to see stricter labor standards in developing countries?
Well, to make their exports less competitive. Cheap labor is an opportunity but also a threat. After all, 2/3 of the employment of American multinationals is still in the US, and 2/3 of the remainder is in other first world countries.
But that's not the argument I was making. My point--and it's a tentative one--is that even if the US establishment doesn't want international labor standards, it needs global authorities with some independence vis-a-vis national states. And presumably will even more over time, to deal with financial and other crises that can't be resolved at a national level. So making the beginnings of such an authority a locus for popular struggle isn't necessarily just providing cover for US intervention abroad.
An analogy might be with Europe. Alan Milward argues pretty convincingly that European integration has been driven at every stage by the agendas of particular national governments, and obviously Europe-wide institutions are highly undemocratic at present. Safe to say that (many of) those running the ECB would like nothing better than to remake Europe in the image of the US. But should the response to this be to denounce integration across the board, or to demand Europe-wide democratic institutions with real power?
Josh