Buchanan, sole voice against free trade?

Henry C.K. Liu hliu at mindspring.com
Tue Mar 2 09:31:39 PST 1999


Persoanlly, I am against "free trade" because it has been a vehicle to globalizing unregulated and "destructive" capitalism and inhuman labor pratices. But I am not sure that Americans, particularly the middle class who are the bulk of the voters, are against cheap consumer products, i.e. low inflation that the average person can actually feel in his/her daily life. Besides, polls are largely determined by the pollsters who frame the questions to get the anwers they look for. What free trade has done for the American economy is to shift low pay jobs to higher pay jobs and shift investment into high tech enterprises.

What free trade has done for the Third World is to pop up corrupt governments, abuse the environment and lift a small part of Third World labor from desperate poverty to statsitical poverty. It also neutralizes scial and political pressure for national development. I know that the "better than nothing" arugment of neo-liberals like DeLong. Sometimes, "nothing" is better than disguised slavery. A total collapse of free trade would be a very progressive development.

Henry

Max Sawicky wrote:


> >
> > Max, has EPI or the AFL-CIO done any polling on free
> > trade? The anti-free
>
> We don't poll. AFL may have commissioned polls. We do analyze
> polling data. Rui Teixeira has done reports on public opinion
> and trade.
>
> > trade position just doesn't seem like a political winner. And
> the few polls I've seen show a majority of the U.S. public
> approving of NAFTA. With 80% of the U.S. labor force employed in
> services, and so largely immune to
> international competition, does the anti-free-trade line resonate
> with the
> masses as much as it does with the UAW?>
>
> My impression of the polling analysis is that reservations, to
> put it mildly, about free trade are rife among the non-rich.
>
> As for services, I've never had trouble explaining to service
> people that their wages can be negatively affected by those of
> their peers in manufacturing. Would that other stuff was as easy
> to explain.
>
> mbs



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