Re: Quebec Protests

["schulte-baeuminghaus" <cresscourt@xxxxxxxxx>]

Steve,

There is a great deal of validity in what you say.
The idea of a free-trade area is itself deceptive. Whether those who -
like George W. Bush - advocate it so strongly, really understand what
it is all about, must be questioned.
At least some of them must be aware that the idea - in the simple
terms in which it is put forward - is a farce.
In the days when the tariff was the or certainly a principal regulator
of world trade, a free-trade area involving the removel of tariffs had
some meaning and significance.
However, tariffs in today's - globalised? - world economy  mean
comparatively little. A whole host of other features of macroeconomic
policies, exchange-rate policies, convertibility and free or unfree
movement of capital, market, health, safety, environment, labour and
other regulations,  are the factors that determine most of world
trade, its components and its direction.
When we speak of a free-trade area, we must - today - be speaking of
an area where it is open slather for the stronger members of the area
to make such inroads into the economies of others as their strength
allows.
We must also assume that those who are in a strong position will use
their strength to prevent inroads into their own economies.
In this context, the record appears to show that the United States has
used its economic power to exploit its position, whether within a
free-trade area or not, in other countries but to defend its own
economy against inconvenient imports from or other economic activity
by other countries, again whether those other countries are members of
the free-trade area or not.
This is not to point the finger at an immoral, "imperialistic" United
States.
It is just that powerful countries protect and promote their own
interests powerfully.
The European Union began in the 1950s as a free-trade area with a
common external tariff which was alleged to convert it into a customs
union.
But there has never been free trade within the European Economic
Community, as it was originally, or in any of its several
manifestations right up to the present-day European Union.
The agricultural sector, through the Common Agricultural Policy, does
not merely protect EU countries against outsiders; it also protects
national agriculture against competition from within the EU. There is
national protection and then EU protection - a splendidly watertight
system which is a reflection of the determination of the more powerful
members of the EU to defend their national interests powerfully and
the smaller units to protect their national interests to the full
extent they can.
This protection goes - or can go - far beyond agriculture. The ways in
which, for example, the French motor industry has been protected and
promoted is more obscure but that it has been accomplished is
undoubted.
Much the same - with differing complexities - applies to the European
aircraft and air transport industries.
And so it goes on.
The policymakers at Quebec - those who kept the protesters at bay -
must have been aware, in some cases, of the exploitation they were
seeking to perfect or, in other cases, the exploitation they must try
to avoid while of course, getting some cut for key elements in their
economies and/or societies.
Some sectors of both groups would suffer loss and perhaps severe
distress - most likely those in the lower income and wealth sectors,
not represented effectively by the Quebec politicians but given some
voice, however poorly articulated, by the protesters outside the
conference rooms.
To suggest, as Bush was trying to do, that everyone must benefit, is a
nonsense.
Of course, things may not work out as the policymakers intend.
In the last couple of weeks, we have been made acutely aware of the
strategic rivalry between China and the United States.
But, for decades, United States policies have - in complete
inadvertence - enabled China to make more dramatic economic progress
than was possible even in the greatest periods of Chinese history down
the centuries.
It has been as though the United States has been a great and selfless
benefactor determined to lift another great people to a point of
economic development where that other is able to challenge the United
States itself - strategically and politically to an ever greater
degree as its economic performance continues to provide it with the
strength that is the basis of all material - not necessarily moral -
power.
So we come back to the point that the powerful advocacy of "free
trade" and the formation of "free-trade areas" by the United States
may, on the one hand, be a deliberate confidence trick or, on the
other hand, it may be that the United States has again failed to
appreciate, if not the strength, then the craft of those who are
sitting down at the poker table with them - or who are watching from
the sidelines.


James Cumes
The Bookshelf of James Cumes
http:/members.chello.at/schulte-baeuminghaus




----------
>From: "Steve Rosenthal" <smrose@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>To: PSN@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: Quebec Protests
>Date: Sun, Apr 22, 2001, 7:44 pm
>

> I generally agree with the points stephen Block made in response to
> TR Young.  What is called globalizing capitalism is bringing
> deepening misery to a large majority of humanity.  I support the
> determined protests in Quebec against summit leaders' efforts to
> create a "Free Trade Area of the Americas."
>
> Since we discussed the "Battle in Seattle" on PSN, certain global
> developments have helped to clarify the meaning of "globalization"
> and "anti-globalization" protest.  George W. today bluntly stated in
> Quebec that the Americas must unite in order to compete with an
> increasingly united Europe.  Even though W often has great difficulty
> in making himself clear, on this occasion his intentions are pretty
> obvious.
>
> The US is trying to strengthen its imperialist position in the
> Western hemisphere, where it has faced increasing competiton from
> European and Asian capitalist rivals.  The economic downturn in the
> US probably lends greater urgency to this US aim.
>
> The rulers meeting in Quebec have announced that they are going to
> proceed to set up a free trade zone, but there will be many
> obstacles to the implementation of an FTAA.  Many Latin American
> rulers are reluctant to accept the US plans.  Brazil's rulers, for
> example, are dealing with their own economic crisis and have ties to
> Mercosur and to Asian and European capital.  It doesn't necessarily
> serve their capitalist interests to accept the US plans, although
> they will probably be careful not to oppose them to openly or
> aggressively.
>
> The term "globalization" obscures what is actually taking place in
> the world today.  As James Petras wrote recently in an article in Z
> magazine, we should stop using words that were invented to obfuscate
> reality.  Globalization is imperialism.  Structural adjustment is
> wealth concentration and plunder.
>
> The formation of regional blocs is a symptom of the sharpening of
> inter-imperialist rivalry.  The main danger facing workers everywhere
> is not that capitalists of all countries will unite.  It is that
> different blocs of capitalists will compete economically and
> politically and eventually militarily, as they did on two notable
> occasions during the last century.
>
> Meanwhile, it is important for anti-globalization forces not to ally
> with one imperialist against another.
>
> Steve Rosenthal