Social Protectionism

[Rakesh Bhandari]

Enrique, what I found intereting in the Friedman editorial is what I put
between asterisks--the demand that all fabric, thread and yard (and
probably machinery too) must  be imported from the US if tarriffs are to be
reduced. Classic colonialism, no?!  Friedman thinks this will add such
transportation costs to African production that it won't be sufficiently
profitable to compete on the global market--so no new investments in sewing
factories will be made. Well of course with those added transportation
costs it would require a lot of wage repression to make it work. So the US
threatens  social protection in the name of wage standards to keep Africa
out (though of course the imports would be largely non competing with US
production) unless it accedes to domination by US capital which will then
mean it can only compete on the basis of ever lower wages. It's not so
paradoxical once we realize that the valorization of imperialist capital is
what drives all this politics to which UNITE simply gives some legitimacy.
That is, Friedman puts all the blame on UNITE, the junior partner in all
this; I understand it as an expression of imperialism. I don't see Friedman
drawing this conclusion.


>Is there any
>evidence that moving textile production abroad has resulted in lower textile
>prices for consumers in the US?

Seems not to be true. But relocation abroad is not only driven by hourly
wage advantages; there is also freedom from safety, overtime and
environmental standards, plus the subsidies the companies enjoy.


>It's a bit disturbing to see Rakesh agreeing with a propagandist moron like
>Friedman.

Marx's defense of free trade is pretty disturbing too. Maybe he was pulling
toes. I don't know. But one of the central claims of the new unionism is
its progressive internationalism. I have been seeking to delegitimize it on
this front, which has led me to use bits and pieces of the analyses by free
trade progagandists.  Right after Slaughter in the latest New Politics,
Peter Rachleff relates a very distrurbing and detailed account of AFL CIO
complicity in the crushing of recent strike by railroad workers in Mexico.

Yours, Rakesh