Fwd: FW: NAFTA has harmed workers in all three countries

Michael Perelman michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Thu Apr 12 07:53:09 PDT 2001


Rakesh is correct in point out the prior deterioration of the condition of the ejidos. One other important factor was that the large farmers got very generous water subsidies.

I think that it is difficult to get a handle on what is actually happening in a place like Mexico. De Janvry's former student, Nora Lustig, has a fairly comprehensive article in the Journal of Economic Perspectives.

I would add that the agricultural phenomenon that I suggested can be extended to all sorts of traditional activities.

As Rakesh suggested, long before NAFTA, Mexico was having trouble creating enough jobs.

On Thu, Apr 12, 2001 at 01:01:36AM -0700, Rakesh Narpat Bhandari wrote:
> Michael Perelman and Brad had the following exchange:
>
> >> > Why can't you say it? NAFTA allows US agricultural goods, which
> >>require very
> >>> little labor, to displace Mexican agriculture, which is very
> >>>labor intensive.
> >>> So, let's say that 1 farm worker displaces 20 in Mexico and that
> >>>10 of these
> >> > displaced farm workers are employed, displacing 3 U.S. workers.
> >> >
> >
> >But that has not happened yet (although Sherman Robinson is still
> >scared that it might)...
>
>
> The ejidos have been suffering through a deepening crisis for at
> least two decades now; supplemental income has been needed for some
> time--I don't think free trade can be blamed alone. But if there is
> someone here with expertise, that would be most helpful. As Brad's
> colleague Alain deJanvry may point out, the inability to make a
> transition to (so called) higher value added fruit and vegetable
> exports has had many causes (and it was on the possibility of this
> transition that NAFTA was sold) : lack of access to credit, reduction
> of subsidies for crucial inputs as they grow more expensive, lack of
> productive foreign investment (despite the privatization of land) and
> continuing US non tariff barriers. I am not sure that NAFTA can alone
> be held responsible, though the touted agricultural transformations
> seem not to have been realized. The presures on the border should
> then only build. Magdalena Barros Nock argues that neo-liberalism
> as a whole has led to the continuing crisis of the ejidos. See
> Disappearing Peasantries: Rural Labour in Africa, Asia and Latin
> America, ed. Deborah Bryceson, Cristobal Kay and Jos Mooj.
>
> RB
>
> ps I sent Doug a private note on one of Bronfenbrenner's journalistic
> summaries of her work a month or so ago; I don't see how her own
> findings in any way prove that NAFTA has been the main cause of shut
> downs upon unionization or threat of unionization. Her own evidence
> that in only one of ten cases do firms threaten to move to Mexico if
> there a move to unionize. It would seem that the more important
> reform would be of domestic laws that allow firms to respond as such
> to unionization drives, not NAFTA per se.
>
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-- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu



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