> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of Jeffrey St. Clair
>
> [another example of how the beltway crowd "out-thinks" itself. they
> admit WTO can't be fixed, but plot a campaign to do just that.--jsc]
No they don't, which is why a two sentence ad hominen analysis contributes very little to building real coalitions, as opposed to selling copy in a magazine.
The key sentence in the strategy piece is:
"The thing about this approach is if the 10 points were to be implemented, we effectively have just killed the WTO and replaced it with a new institution even if it is still called WTO. If the key changes to prune back WTO are not made, then we got on the warpath with added credibility as to why it has to go and cannot be repaired and we need to start over. (ie either WTO bends or it breaks."
The fact is that most progressive folks support trade so just calling for "nixing it" does sound like protectionism. This approach pushes for abolishing the bad aspects of the WTO - notably its override of domestic environmental and labor protections - under the rubric of "fixing it." The Left may be as in love with "Just Say No" slogans as Nancy Reagan, but a positive program usually beats a negative program any day.
But why get caught up in rhetorical differences? Analyze the strategy instead.
The key to this analysis is in point One of proposed changes in WTO:
"For all countries: the [new] rule is to treat domestic and foreign goods alike but that WTO has no role in forbidding differences in treatment of goods according to how goods are made (ie. with child labor or fish caught with drift nets). Similarly, the LEVEL of health protection is not questioned, but simply whether it applies to both domestic and foreign goods. This would restore every country's right to make its own decisions re its own domestic market, economic design, etc."
This guts the WTO's superlegislature position while avoiding protectionism. It says that the original goals of free trade - reducing tariffs and treating foreign and domestic goods of similar nature the same - are reasonable goals that serve both growth and international equity. But the WTO cannot force a country to accept goods made in ways that would be illegal in its own country.
Darci does highlight the real conflict which is between those who want to depend on national legislation to try to ratchet up environmental and labor standards and those who want to have them part of an enforceable set of standards, using the WTO structure to do the enforcing:
"However, many in the labor movement do call for adding labor standards to WTO as the only way to obtain enforceable global labor standards given WTO is the only effective global enforcement mechanism that exists. Ideas on how to avoid this conflict are appreciated!"
This is a conflict, but since the global capitalist class is not going to accept enforceable labor standards, in practice pushing them will end up leading to a "nix it" outcome as much as the Naderite strategy.
The obvious question for Jeffery is that if this strategy makes so little sense, what is his and Cockburn's positive program? Just riot?
-- Nathan Newman