Rakesh, your interpretations of plain statements is getting really bizarre. I can almost guarantee that people who self-identify as socialists and probably Marxists wrote the damn statement. Why you assume that you and a few friends are the only people of good will is beyond me? Sure the AFL-CIO folks act with some self-interest, but within that context I don't understand why you won't grant the nonself-interested commitment to global social justice involved as well.
> Nathan pointed out
>
> > since if the largest consumer
> >nations can use such consumption to dictate production location, it is
> >Southern nations that are more likely to be screwed.
>
> Right on. The largest consumer nation has indeed forced through threats of
> protectionism FDI into all its states--including the right to
> work ones. Is
> this what the AFL-CIO is protesting against? Please Nathan.
> Sweeney is only
> opposed to such 'coercion' when other govts practice it.
So do you want a WTO where there is no such coercion? Where every multinational has free choice to locate anywhere and any government action requiring local production is automatically barred by the WTO?
This whole area is confusing and confused on all sides. If governments retain the right to force local content and production, that seems to kill the free trade you seem to want for third world development. If they are barred from it by WTO rules, then the rich nations will inevitably use that power strategically for their own advantage (your other argument). So in your conspiracy-minded mode, whatever anyone says on the question can be interpreted as perfidious and imperialist.
What's the right "progressive" answer for you then?
> >"The IMF, the World Bank and the regional banks must
> fundamentally rethink
> >the conditionality they impose on developing countries. Rather
> than forcing
> >austerity, privatization, deregulation, export-led growth, trade and
> >investment liberalization and weakening of labor laws, the international
> >financial institutions must emphasize domestic-led growth, democratic
> >institutions and the observance of core workers' rights."
>
> it then doesn't
> want these
> countries to get hard currency they need to satsify creditors, pay for oil
> and operate in the world market. Basically, the AFL CIO wants these
> countries to go away when stricken, turn onto themselves and disappear off
> the map just as immigrants do in Joerg Haider's imaginary.
Rakesh, you sound a bit nuts when you interpret AFL-CIO calls for debt relief (i.e. less need for hard currency) and support for "domestic-led growth" as wanting them to "go away." Maybe I missed something, but the major struggle against the IMF has been that it imposes narrow export-led commodity production on countries in place of diverse internal industries and subsistence agriculture.
Telling the difference between your arguments promoting hard currency production and the typical IMF SAP is getting harder and harder.
But to be clear on the debt relief issue, the AFL-CIO leaders have been promoting the Jubilee 2000 debt relief campaign; just last week, John Sweeney said:
"As a part of our campaign, we will escalate our efforts to stand with our sisters and brothers around the globe, our own government and our civil society partners to support a broader development agenda that can create equitable, sustainable, and democratic economic growth. We will work for relief from unpayable debt burdens for countries committed to democratic reforms and core workers' rights. And we will ask Congress to put a higher priority on development aid. It is shameful that the United States—the wealthiest country in the world—has not hit the United Nations' modest target of devoting seven-tenths of one percent of GDP to development aid. You have copies of a proposed AFL-CIO resolution on development assistance and debt relief that was passed by the International Affairs committee on Monday and will go to the Executive Council tomorrow." http://www.aflcio.org/publ/press2000/pr02161.htm
Linda Chavez-Thompson said in a speech "On April 9, we will join with people of faith from all over the country during the Jubilee 2000 call for debt relief for developing countries. Many developing country governments' ability to meet their citizens' basic needs and fund the building blocks of strong development—education, health care, and infrastructure—have been crippled by an enormous burden of debt." See http://www.aflcio.org/publ/press2000/pr02162.htm
See http://www.aflcio.org/publ/estatements/feb2000/edsd.htm for the AFL-CIO Exec Board resolution
> First the AFLCIO doesn't recommend anything that will prevent the problem
> (except perhaps for the Tobin Tax more than compensated for by
> full embrace
> of imperialist technology policy), then it tells them to solve the problem
> on their own.
You are basing this whole "embrace of imperialist technology policy" on a pretty thin reed.
The AFL-CIO doesn't have a technology policy. I wish they did. But if we are going to imply a policy where there is none, I could cite the AFL-CIO resolution to "Provide more technical and legal support to developing countries so their participation in negotiations is not hampered by lack of resources or technical expertise" as a call for massive technology transfer to create an even playing field. I won't since turning one-sentence phrases into developed theoretical statements of policy where no policy exists is just tendentious, much as your reverse interpretation is forced and biased.
The fact remains that the AFL-CIO is making strong commitments to debt relief and expanding economic transfers to the South.
I can agree with you that a strong policy around technology issues is missing, but imagining a bad one where none really exists does not add much to the debate.
-- Nathan Newman