>Not taking sides with either of two camps on the WTO issue is not the same
>thing as abstaining from politics. This debate is about business strategy -
>not about developing an independent working class position. Ultimately the
>Chinese government will decide whether to go in or stay out on the basis of
>its calculations of the benefits - or lack thereof - for indigenous capital
>accumulation.
>
>Unless we of course assume that China is some sort of "workers' state". If
>it isn't, why should Chinese workers have an interest in helping formulate
>its foreign policy?
>
>Seeing as Doug asks: workers' real interests are probably to do with
>ensuring that they continue
>to develop an independent political outlook and that it takes an appropriate
>organisational form. If you're talking about trade union organisations, I
>would imagine that they've got their work cut out just defending wages and
>working conditions. Why make things even more difficult by subordinating
>your class interests to either of the two WTO camps and confusing your
>membership?
If the WTO is an embryonic institution of a global ruling class, like its elder Bretton Woods siblings, then I don't see how the organized working class can not take a position on it. It's not business strategy, it's basic class politics. And since it's international, I don't see how the national working classes of the world can do anything but devise common strategies around it/them. While I think unions and the left, whatever that is, have placed too much emphasis on "globalization's" effect on labor markets, its effects are certainly >0, so you can't defend wages and working conditions without taking a position on WTO/IMF/WB/etc. Anything else is just weak business unionism.
Doug