>"It's possible that Mr. Clinton's determination to do what he
>believed was right on international trade cost the Democrats the
>White House - not just because West Virginia's electoral votes
>provided Mr. Bush with his winning margin, but because Mr.
>Clinton's free-trade policies fueled Ralph Nader's spoiler
>campaign."
>Is this true? I supported Nader but was ambivalent on Clinton's
>free-trade policies. I bet Nader would have gone
>along with Europe's suggestion (and Krugman's?) that the way to
>deal with the steel industry's woes would be for the government
>to buy out the pension plans (with tax money raised from the rich
>and corporate America of course).
>Krugman's incorrect in that right and wrong were never part of
>the equation in Clinton's thinking (with the possible exception
>of Northern Ireland). His policies, and Shrub's, support the
>theory that the Democrats, especially the New Democrats, are the
>party of international capital whilst the Repugs are the party of
>local, nationalist capital and industry.
So Enron, Arthur Andersen and all the Pioneers who supported Bush are purely national capital players?
I think Bush's steel policy represents no particular capital interests but is a pure concession to the West Virginia steelworkers, and I say West Virginia because the tariffs were specifically structured to most benefit them while giving less protection to steel produced in other states, which use different processes.
Why is there so much resistance amongst third party advocates to recognizing that politicians actually care about votes? Because of the combination of Clinton's refusal to sign onto steel tariffs and the gun issue, Dems lost West Virginia for the first time in decades in a close election. And buying out the pension plans wouldn't make those steelworkers happy-- they want their decent-paying jobs as well.
Bush is playing the Buchanan protectionist card for specific US voters while combining it with fullout support for the WTO and international agreements to gut the power of power countries and US advocates to protect labor and environmental standards. Bush's policies are the worst of all worlds-- bullying US unilateralism to abuse tariffs for pure political gain while destroying any real international debate on social policy in trade.
Clinton was balancing capital interests, some honest commitment to free trade I think and the pressures of unions and environmentalists. The collapse of Seattle was partly due to Clinton's response to that presure in the streets in trying to include labor and enviro discussions in the round, while the Jordan trade agreement embodied the basic compromise path he adopted by the end of his Presidency. Bush rejected all concessions to trade and enviro standards at the most recent WTO summit and none were incorpoated in the round.
There is no doubt that the Dems are influenced by parts of capital, but they are also influenced by their grassroots consistencies such as labor. Folks can argue that labor is not getting enough for their support, but to not even try to include the concessions made to labor just makes for unusuable analysis.
And of course, we once again have the equation of the Presidency with the Party, as if three-fourths of Dems in the House did not reject Fast-Track trade authority for Clinton and nearly all rejected fast track authority for Bush last fall. What capital interests forced the Dems in Congress to overwhelmingly reject fast track authority?
Nathan Newman