Has neo-liberal ideology penetrated so deeply that this is a controversial opinion even on the LBO list?
> the "nix it" crowd basically is arguing for derailing the present WTO
> round, without a real plan for dismantling the established WTO/GATT system.
>
Some have plans, others have given the matter about as much thought as anti-war activists give to the matter of development strategies for victims of US agression or opponents of the death penalty give to alternative punishments for capital crimes. First and foremost, immoral policies and institutions need to be abolished. Plans for what, if anything, needs to replace these can wait.
As far as a plan for dismantling the system: cutting off heat and telephone service to WTO offices might be a good place to start.
> Of course, there is a serious debate of those arguing and fighting for a
> more sophisticated set of concerns and strategies-- I don't claim some great
> unique theory here.
As Chomsky has argued for decades (and as is on display in the recent Michael Kinsley Slate piece) the technocratic intelligentia, largely bought and paid for by elite sectors, has a vested interested in preserving the fiction that economic policy generally is a mystery requiring all manner of "sophisticated strategies" and "unique theories."
This remark is indicative of the fact that many on this list seem to have have bought into a leftist version of what Chomsky refers to "the system of mystification" which insures the continuing management of public discourse by elites.
(I'd love to see a thread on this-though it is retreading at least a few acres of an old mine field.)
> > > But the nix-it crowd is intellectually weak as well. Global
> > capital will
> > > not fall to its knees if the IMF, World Bank and the WTO ceased to exist
> > > tomorrow.
> >
I haven't seen anyone on the "nix it" side making this absurd claim. "Intellectual weakness" consists in making such straw man arguments.
> No, I don't buy the sovereignty line; there is none in a global capitalist
> order where multinationals wield more economic power than whole nations and
> any country can be whip-sawed and disciplined by financial markets and
> capital strike far more effectively than by any WashCom institution.
>
Given that the political agenda of most developed nations has been under the control of multi-nationals, we will never know whether the exercise of domestic "soveignty" has the potential to rein them in. The first step in testing this potential is to demonstrate that the most egregiously invasive manifestations of corporate power such as the WTO can be challenged and "nixed" by direct action. If policy wonks won't do the challenging, and we can be pretty sure they won't, the rest of us will have to do it in the streets. Furthermore, if we don't support the opposition, your position becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.
> protection, or a watered down labor clause with no teeth. But the AFL-CIO
> and most grassroots US enviro groups opposed NAFTA with its bullshit side
> accords, so there's not too much worry that capital will offer enough to get
> a deal.
>
What do you mean by oppose? Making an early endorsement of the adminstration's point-man on NAFTA hardly seems like opposition.
In terms of enviro groups, in fact, most mainstream "responsible" groups supported NAFTA: the NRDC, EDF, WWF, and others. Doesn't this shake your confidence in the moderate center just a little. And isn't it your business to know these things?
Question for others: was this opportunism or arrogance on their part? I can't figure out which.
John