Marx on free trade

Peter Kilander peterk at enteract.com
Mon Sep 27 20:47:28 PDT 1999


Max:
>The analogy is deeply flawed. In the olden days, national governments
>stoked nationalist feelings against near-peers in the capitalist world.
>That's not happening now at all; the guys in charge are campaigning
>for a world without borders, as far as trade and capital mobility go.
>National sovereignty is subordinated to the New World Order., though
>some are more equal than others in this setting.

Maybe it's not happening b/c things are relatively rosy. During the 80's we witnessed some exteme Japan-bashing, even by supposedly enlightened Democrats like Tsongas. Do you really think we're beyond that? I mean, if things get ugly?

some more of Max:
>The fact that areas of superior labor standards are to an
>important extent correlated with national boundaries is no
>reason to relax in defense of working class living standards.
>If workers are striking a company, we do not support scabs
>because the latter are in more dire economic straits, or
>because some workers want to be scabs.
>
>Workers in other countries -- and their own organizations --
>understand this. Why shouldn't we?

If I was an Indonesian union organizer, I would wonder why the AFL-CIO was supporting Clinton's policy of supporting an anti-union Indonesian governement and would chafe at hearing my fellow workers being labelled scabs by Clinton supporters.

Granted, the notion of a new International (which raises standards internationally, rather than settling for nationalist labor movements who engage in turf wars) seems like a pipe dream but as Russell Banks writes in a review of a book on Debs [see previous post by moi]:

"Socialism that year called for minimum wages, a maximum on work hours, women's suffrage, and abolition of child labor. Though these issues have long since been appropriated by the major parties and enacted, they were the very essence of crackpot, possibly dangerous radicalism in 1904."



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list