Re: Trade policy

[pdavidso <pdavidso@xxxxxxx>]

In response to Paul A, Henry Liu wrote:


>===== Original Message From "Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> =====
>I have read a couple of the papers and find that they are exegetic
>exercises to substantiate what by now is obvious to even a layman like
>me.  You cannot walk on the sidewalks of any city today without
>stumbling on the dead bodies left by globalization and free trade.
>There is not need to quote Stiglitz or UNDP reports for evidence.  So
>far, this confernce has not said anything new or insightful, nor has it
>provided any earth-shaking proposals.

This was my feeling as well -- nothing novel or even really interesting in
these papers -- certainly very7 little of striking reform.  We all can be for
law abiding citizenry and transparance -- like motherhood -- but does that by
itself really change the basic faults of a capitalistic system as Keynes
pointed out in the last chapter of the GT: namely  The failure to provide full
employment and the arbitrary and inequitable distribution of income and wealth

>
>Even at its most constructive, it is highly debatable and lacking in
>factual evidence that on a global scale, capitalism produced good jobs.

I would modify this to sugest that it is laissez-faire capitalism. On the
other hand, the capitalism that evolved after WWII with a good deal of
government regulation of private economic activity -- but not government as
owner of the plant and equipment used to produce goods and serices  --and a
government that took an active role to promote international economic growth
thruough Marshall plan and foreign aid, and the Keynes- White Bretton Woods
system was effective in providing ccapital development in underdeveloped areas
of the globeetc. -- lead to good jobs , and the reduction in income
inequalities both domestically and internationally.


>  If anything, capitlaism has transformed decentl livelihoods in much of
>the Third World into sweatshop jobs.

This is the capitalism of the last three decades of the 20th century -- when
the Bretton Woods system broke down-- and government regulations of capital
flows domestically and intenraationally were gradually removed.  Do not blame
the netrepreneujrial system we call capitalism per se -- it was the capitalism
that forgot Keynes's analytical message that encouyraged such anti-social
results.

It is also debatable that
>capitalism raised the standard of living outside of the G7 economies,
>and even with the G7, the standard of living appears to be declining
>when measured by health care, education, full employment and job
>security.

The statiastics (see the first chapter of my book FINANCIAL MARKETS, MONEY AND
THE REAL WORLD) indicate that for a quarter century after the WWII health
care, education, full employmen t and a rsing standard of living occurred both
in the OECD nations and in the LDCs! It was intead a "Golden Age" that ended
in the early 1970s--- as Keynes's message was ignored and then forgotten.

Paul

Paul Davidson
Editor, Journal of Post Keynesian Economics
University of Tennessee
SMC 503
Knoxville, Tennessee 37996-0550
office phone #;(865)974-4221; office fax# (865)974-1686 or (865)974-4601
home phone and fax # (865)692-0802
email pdavidson@xxxxxxx
http://econ.bus.utk.edu/davidsonextra/Davidson.html