Re: Keeping focus after the WTO

[Doug Henwood <dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx>]

Martin Hart-Landsberg wrote:

> Again the scary thing is that the EPI is a progressive think-tank and the
> journal Working USA is a progressive journal.  But here we are making
> China the big issue, and promoting as progressive, policies designed to
> adjust the world so as to preserve capitalist market imperatives.  And all
> in the name of protecting US workers.

In a talk in NYC a couple of weeks ago, AFL-CIO chief economist Tom
Palley said that their main reason for opposing China's entry into
the WTO is that it would seal the fate of any attempt to put labor
standards into a trade agreement. Right now, the anti-standards bloc
is led by Brazil and India (in terms of heft), and adding China to
that mix would be death to a labor standard. If you accept their
reasoning on standards, they're probably right; if you want to scrap
the WTO entirely, what should your position be?

Doug