Now we know that the devil is in the details of all these agreements, and your report of the Boeing/China negotiations is not very detailed.
Generally speaking however, foreign investors from industrial countries are most keen to safeguard their proprietary technology--it seems that you deny this.
So they try to control management and investment decisions, access domestic markets, import as much of current inputs and equipment as posible, and (in the case of China and India in particular) often try to *avoid* export (as I noted earlier, China used to demand that a foreign investor earn enough foreign exchange to import inputs and equipment or repatriate loyalties,dividends, but I think this has been rescinded under US pressure, no?)
Of course the Chinese or Indian player usually has the opposite interest in such joint ventures--to "fade out" the joint venture and quickly aquire relevant skills in technology, marketing, etc to itself become a global player.
Your whole post seems to be based on the denial of any such conflicts of interest. You suggest that there is only shared interest between the Chinese elite and the Boeing capitalists in taking advantage of low Chinese wages at the expense of American workers; there is no conflict, you suggest, between the Chinese state on the one hand and Boeing capitalists/workers on the other hand over technology transfer.
This seems not true to me in the case (you provide not a shred of evidence that Boeing management has been prodding the Chinese state to demand transfer of as much as tech as possible to take advantage of low wages there and break the union here) and most certaintly not true in the general case of "high technology."
Then you go on to accuse me of not resolving a contradiction that I had already admitted seemed to inhere in the nature of things. Yet there is no reason not to demand that aircraft ordered by US purchasers is indeed made with union labor in accordance with agreements already on the books.
Now it is true that China and perhaps only a few other third world countries even have the power due to potential size of their orders and their existing infrastructure to make some real demands on Boeing for a transfer of technology.
Do note that the entire so called "dual use" US aircraft industry has been built with massive government subsidy in violation of the spirit of every free trade agreement. For EPI researchers to complain of unfair trade by the Chinese is a joke.
It is only to be expected that China would then want to explore whether it can develop tech sufficiently to free itself over time from dependence on the monoply suppliers, Boeing and Airbus. This means fewer union jobs will be added in Seattle as China makes orders for aircraft (though since most of the tech into China will still be imported, union jobs in Seattle will increase with orders, just not at the same rate).
To me, this tradeoff seems tolerable not least because of the horrendously mounting problem of unemployment in China and the so called multiplier effects these wages could have. More importantly China will be trapped in ever worsening terms of trade if it cannot complete sucessfully its foray into higher value, higher tech, higher productivity, higher growth production--machine tools, computers, aircraft, etc.
The consequence from this will catastrophic unemployemnt and poverty and some checks of it must be allowed, but the US labor movement is categorically opposed at present to any reform of the international division of labor.
At any rate, all this negotiation affects very few American workers, and the priority that the AFL CIO has given to it seems to me wholly unjustified.
Moreover,third world governments should push for technology transfer, lax intellectual property rights (of course with exemptions for individual writers, etc), a diluted TRIM agreement, foreign exchange requirements (see above), a less liberal GATS, etc., but it seems that with increasing global dependence on the US market, US military strength and the central role of the US dollar, the US state has been able to win these negotiations.
In this context to then add a social clause which you, Max and Doug seem unable to even admit *could* be used in abusive protectionist manner is to add insult to injury and to impose all burdens of adjustment on the third world. Indeed the only reform that seems winnable at present (all else is lost) is this social clause which seems in this present context to be capable of doing more harm than good.
You then wrote:
>
>Where US workers do gain from international trade is where Chinese and other
>developing nation workers organize strongly enough to have the wages to
>become reciprocal consumers of US goods- a basic labor Keynesianism.
You have to prove 1. how much higher marginal propensity to consume will be among beneficiaries of income restribution through wage increases. 2. how much US exports, largely capital and advanced high tech--not consumer--goods would be stimulated by this higher propensity to consume. I think you have a very exaggerated sense of this.
Also you need to consider this: given the level of technique widely available in the third world how much global and domestic market share could be lost due to loss of competitivness from higher wages? Are you willing to allow third world to raise tariffs to protect domestic industry, but your AFL CIO is committed to tearing them down along with the imperialists.
Yours, Rakesh