> >Doug Henwood wrote:
> >
> >>In an email reaction to Liza Featherstone's and my Lingua Franca
> >>piece, a prominent student anti-sweatshop activist pointed out "the
>
> here's the url to the piece in case it hasn't been posted:
> http://www.linguafranca.com/print/0103/cover_clothes.html
>
> "I came back from Seattle thinking that the voice of economists was not very
> audible in the public space," Bhagwati says."
>
> This is pretty funny. The public space is wall-to-wall orthodoxy which is
> why Seattle, the anti-MAI thing, and the other successes were so amazing. Or
> rather, the public space is wall-to-wall distraction from the central
> isssues of political economy.
********
Well, their voices aren't as influential as those players in/of the international legal regime that is emerging. The USTR's office is largely staffed by folks steeped in international law and corporate finance etc. according to someone I met who gave an eye opening presentation to the Washington State legislature earlier this month on just how many state laws were WTO illegal. John Jackson one of the BIG players in GATT is getting his own brand spanking new building at Georgetown University to industrialize the production of "lawyers for globalization". While B. did a lot for GATT over the past twenty years, the economists have been 2nd stringers, so to speak, to the lawyers in DC according to the folks from DC.
Ian