>Take Rakesh's critique-- yes, eco-labor standards will on occasion be used
>by developing countries to sanction developing nations. Given the fact, the
>US already uses Super 301 sanctions and imposes the Cuban embargo without
>much worries, why this creates a new regime of abuse against trading purity
>is unclear to me. It seems like the capitalists already have leverage to
>use the trading system as is for their benefit.
With the phasing out of MFA, the US state needs new tools with which to manage trade. And given the global unpopularity of above mechanisms and US bully tactics generally, it would be nice to stand on the moral high ground for once, wouldn't it?
What eco-labor standards
>create is a tool that could be used, given the real but limited power of
>labor (and other progressive forces) noted above to have environmental and
>labor concerns dealt with in the trading regime. Assume no labor power and
>that makes no sense, but assume some power and the results will be that
>whether the abuses occur within Indonesia or the United States itself, labor
>will be able to mount campaigns globally using the leverage of those
>standards.
But when will the US state give in to these movements? Of course only when it has failed to wrench concessions from some third world country--this will be the compromise between labor power and the US capitalist state: arbitrarily imposed sanctions. Well not arbitrarily imposed at all. They will be imposed *in the name of eco-labor standards* on those states that are most reluctant on the issues of liberalising finance, conforming their patent law to the US', imposing local content requirements. So the alliance that can only emerge from US labor power and the US state is social imperialism.
Anways, if you don't accept this ineluctable conclusion (ineluctable once you have dispensed with a mystical view of the state), then you still must defend the effects of the Harkin Bill, which even left liberal Challenge magazine was not willing to do--see the piece on child labor by Basu a few issues back. If you can't stand on that, you have no empirical basis to go foward with the threat of more compehensive sanctions.
And you want to impose or threaten sanctions on Indonesia? That threatens unimaginable catastrophe. It's this kind of loose talk that (honestly) sickens me. I would expect it from some morally obnoxious students upset about where their school jerseys are made, not from someone as sophisticated as you.
>That said, my assumption is that capital is not prepared itself to accept
>those standards in the trading regime, precisely because they see the
>opening for labor and enviro mobilization, so the "fix it or nix it" fight
>amounts to "nix it."
Sweeney is not interested in nixing the WTO.
In another post, you note:
"Scabs, legal or undocumented, don't get a lot of sympathy from me."
This is indeed justifiable. If a union is being broken, it is quite sad that they can't seek protection in labor law, only in the repressive apparatus which will only be strenghtened by labor's call for protection. I don't know if this is victory or admission of the powerlessness of labor once the rules of the game are accepted.
yrs, rakesh