First, the NYT is engaging in the standard Brooksian/Friedmanist technique of supporting something with apparent qualifications, but actually engaging in unconditional support. That is, using the Iraq War as an example:
- I support the Iraq War, if it is done this way (describe reservations)
- The Iraq War is not done that way in the slightest
- Given the above, I support the Iraq War
The NYT supports TPP with qualifications; the TPP will not have those attributes; given the above, the NYT will absolutely support the TPP. It's a way to deflect criticism - if anyone criticizes your support, you just point to your expressed reservations.
Second, free trade has proven to be not good for the bulk of the public. Most HN commenters, having been immersed in right-wing economics, have the belief that it is somehow scientifically proven that free trade is beneficial for all, but that's not actually what the science says. The results of decades of "free trade" agreements have been to overrule local decision-making; they are profoundly anti-democratic. They've resulted in a massive transfer of wealth from the bulk of the population to a very few, very wealthy individuals. Free trade agreements are a substantial cause for the fact that most workers in the United States are making less money now than they were 30 years ago, even though their productivity has gone up massively in the meantime.
If an action X takes away $1 from each of nine people, and gives $15 to the tenth person, the total benefit for society in dollars is theoretically positive (-$9, +$15) but nine out of ten people have been harmed by it, and it's not clear that the real benefit is positive at all, because of the declining marginal utility of money. That's pretty much what "free trade" represents. Add in the anti-democratic aspects and it's clear to me that modern "free trade" agreements, negotiated in secret between the Aspen corporate elite, are something that should be roundly opposed.
Free trade agreements aren't. Really. If they were free-trade, they wouldn't need thousands of pages of legalese. What it is is "managed trade", an agreement essentially made to benefit certain large corporations (as you pointed out), but also to restrict and to make many exceptions. It ends up being complex enough that only a large entity with a legal department can take advantage of it, rather than small and medium-sized entreprises.
If they were free-trade, they wouldn't need thousands of pages of legalese. What it is is "managed trade", an agreement essentially made to benefit certain large corporations (as you pointed out), but also to restrict and to make many exceptions.
Indeed.
These kinds of agreements are like DRM for economics.
free trade has proven to be not good for the bulk of the public. Most HN commenters, having been immersed in right-wing economics, have the belief that it is somehow scientifically proven that free trade is beneficial for all, but that's not actually what the science says. The results of decades of "free trade" agreements have been to overrule local decision-making; they are profoundly anti-democratic. They've resulted in a massive transfer of wealth from the bulk of the population to a very few, very wealthy individuals. Free trade agreements are a substantial cause for the fact that most workers in the United States are making less money now than they were 30 years ago, even though their productivity has gone up massively in the meantime.
I am not taking a position, but I think the not-altogether-ridiculous evidence they have for is the fact that global poverty has been declining steadily[1]. This is tied to the idea that efficiency increases provided by globalization are always a plus. Inequality may have deepened, but the argument is that that is irrelevant if the lowest standard of living rises. Not my argument, just saying.
Of course, I suppose one could argue that poverty would have reduced even more had globalization not happened, but I wouldn't know where to begin to do that. I would welcome someone who can.
Edit: Now that I am reading how they define "poverty" (<$1.25/day), and considering the fact more can be lost or gained than just money, I am getting suspicious...
> This is tied to the idea that efficiency increases provided by globalization are always a plus. Inequality may have deepened, but the argument is that that is irrelevant if the lowest standard of living rises.
I have to wonder that even if this is true, whether that means it's true for all conditions. That is, the cost of inequality may at some point equal, then surpass the cost of poverty, either from poverty decreasing or inequality increasing. That could either be a gradual change, or a fairly abrupt one, as people that have amassed massive wealth and power make use of it to change the system to their benefit (and would most people recognize this until it was long done?).
Executives using treaties to alter domestic law is going to be one of the defining issues of the 21st century. One take on the problem was starkly put in antifederalist #75 in 1788 by a person using the name Hampden (who had been a figure in the English civil wars, of which the American revolution in some ways was an extention). Well worth taking two minutes of your time to read.[1]
The stakes are highest in the EU at the moment as it is made of treaties and there are significant forces who see that process as an illegitimate way to make a federation. The time frame there is 5-10 years where besides the 'muddle through' we often see in Europe, which is very possible, an implosion of the whole thing, a federation or both are all possibilities with massive consequences due to the inherent logic of monetary union. Unfortunately contemporary television and print journalism is not well calibrated to exploring these issues.
... the house of representatives, which has the best chance of possessing virtue, and public confidence...
Hmm -- I don't think Mr. Hampden nailed that one, exactly.
Still, it's an interesting point. The President and the Senate could collude to enact treaties contrary to the national interest (particularly since there's widespread disagreement on what that is). Requiring House approval as well might be a useful additional check on the process.
But only by the Senate, not the House, as pointed out by the link the other poster had. (not that I agree with the extreme right-wing views of the linked site)
A US-led trade deal is currently being negotiated that could increase the price of prescription drugs, weaken financial regulations and even allow partner countries to challenge American laws. But few know its substance.
The pact, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), is deliberately shrouded in secrecy, a trade deal powerful people, including President Obama, don’t want you to know about. Over 130 Members of Congress have asked the White House for more transparency about the negotiations and were essentially told to go fly a kite. While most of us are in the dark about the contents of the deal, which Obama aims to seal by year end, corporate lobbyists are in the know about what it contains.
And some vigilant independent watchdogs are tracking the negotiations with sources they trust, including Dean Baker and Yves Smith, who join Moyers & Company this week. Both have written extensively about the TPP and tell Bill the pact actually has very little to do with free trade.
Instead, says Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, “This really is a deal that’s being negotiated by corporations for corporations and any benefit it provides to the bulk of the population of this country will be purely incidental.” Yves Smith, an investment banking expert who runs the Naked Capitalism blog adds: “There would be no reason to keep it so secret if it was in the interest of the public.”
"Free" trade is NOT in the interest of the common man. As implemented, these policies are, unsurprisingly, in the interests of the sponsors of such. I guess they are like peace treaties, though: to which multinational corporation(s) are we surrendering today?
They might "benefit" workers in low wage countries, but that's about it.
Tell the guy who lost his $45 K/yr job for a $15 K/yr job that it's a good thing that trinkets are 25% cheaper at MalWart now, even though "volatile" items like housing, fuel and food continue to go up.
Hurray for me that I still have a 6 figure job. What about people who weren't in the top 1-2% of their class in math/science? What are they supposed to do?
Maybe it's time for a hybrid form of government, then. Replace the Senate with direct democracy to ratify or reject bills and such, and use the representatives in the House as specialists to write legislation.
Of course, there might be some issues with having weekly ballot referendums, but look at the mess we have now.
What does the public mean? The numerical majority? The loudest segment? Policy pushed by the former could have a negative impact on minority groups, and policy pushed by the latter can be acerbic in general.
What does the public mean? The numerical majority? The loudest segment? Policy pushed by the former could have a negative impact on minority groups, and policy pushed by the latter can be acerbic in general.
Except thaumasiotes argument is that we know what the public wants, but they shouldn't get it, because they don't know what's good for them.
How to determine what the people want, and how we should structure a government to represent and implement that, is a topic we can debate endlessly. But once we have determined the will of the people (however we define that), to then say that we should disregard it because the people can't be trusted to know what's good for them, is fundamentally at odds with the entire idea of representative government in general, and American government specifically.
When people can move as easily as capital, I'll believe we have something approaching free trade.
So far, all the deals have mostly helped big institutions get more power over governments. We are on the hook when we pass public health measures, because they reduce future profits of foreign corporations. That's insane, and it's no wonder people oppose it.
Heh. I don't endorse keeping the treaty secret like this. But I like to be accurate. So as a mostly-factual matter,
- Free trade is massively unpopular as a concept.
- Two parties (however defined) that implement a free trade agreement tend to see a rise in standard of living.
- Larger trade zones tend to be doing better along all kinds of metrics than smaller ones.
I think it's safe to say that free trade is in the public interest, and I think it's reasonable to consider public hatred for it as "a reason" to keep it secret. I can think all that without thinking that keeping it secret is a good idea.
"Two parties (however defined) that implement a free trade agreement tend to see a rise in standard of living."
You're missing the part where party A has a standard of living of 9 and party B has a standard of living of 4 and after the treaty they go to 8 and 6, respectively.
Yes, a rise in standard of living - but A lost and it would be completely rational for them to reject the FTA.
It's even more stark when you consider that the 9 that becomes an 8 is made up, internally, primarily of sevens-that-become-fives and a small portion of 100s that become 200s.
So yes, people railing against FTA/globalization often have no theoretical underpinning, have no clarity in their argument, and generally "don't know what they're talking about" - but they're getting fucked and they know it and that trumps the well-worded argument you're looking for.
But my standard of living index went to 200! I still don't see the problem! I just don't understand what you people are getting all worked up about. Look at the GDP!
I don't disagree, but don't completely agree either, that free trade is always a blessing.
- Mexico is a party to NAFTA and other trade agreements with South American and Asian countries, but 37 million mexicans survive on less than US $5.00 a day.
- Good macroeconomic metrics can obscure or mask what is actually happening on the ground. In this sense, trade agreements can bring massive grief to large sections of the population. Going back to Mexico, the lift of tariffs on articles like clothing and shoes have decimated the local industry, leaving thousands of bankrupt businesses and families.
Probably the hatred for free trade has been caused by the way it's been implemented, favoring large corporate interests, and trying to maximize macroeconomic metrics to the detriment of microeconomics. This is probably the reason this new agreement is being negotiated in secret too: it will have negative impact on the lives of many people.
Is anyone else reminded of "Network", near the end (spoilers, for a 40 year old film), in which the Howard Beale character goes off on a rant about a secretive global merger, causing the public to flood the government with protest, which then earns Beale a meeting with the company CEO and a lecture on free trade and the insignificance of humanity?
If you haven't seen "Network", it's the movie from which, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore" comes from. However, the movie is not really about standing up for your rights, it's more about modern American media, and of all the satirical movies I've ever seen, it's the one that comes closest to predicting what has come to pass. It's a brilliant, brilliant movie...the only one, I believe, to have nominees in all four Oscar acting categories (it won 3 of them).
A portion of the "Network" diatribe says the following:
At the bottom of all our terrified souls we know that democracy is a dying giant; a sick, dying, decaying political concept writhing in its final pain. I don't mean the United States is finished as a world power. The U.S. is the richest, the most powerful, the most advanced nation on earth, light years ahead of any other country. And I don't mean the communists are going to take over the world because the communists are deader than we are.
They wish they hadn't included the last part about communists (although they were very much referring to U.S.S.R. and not China, in that line)
How has the average American worker done since NAFTA was passed? There used to be a time when an autoworker could support a wife and two kids on a single income.
Free trade is great when it's fair. What we have today is free movement of capital, semi-free movement of goods, and non-free movement of people. Not the best combination.
Well, we don't have free movement of capital, as any American citizen who has recently tried to open or maintain a foreign bank account can tell you. My US-based commercial bank account no longer even supports outgoing wires. So whatever's going on doesn't involve increasing economic freedom across borders.
How has the average American worker done since NAFTA was passed?
No complaints here. But NAFTA was ratified a long time ago. TPP is not NAFTA.
One of the most worrying trends of the last century has been the President abusing his treaty powers to end-run around the democratic process domestically. It's a surrendering of our sovereignty to internationalist interests.
While corporate interests are implicated in this sort of thing, internationalism is the big problem in this sort of process. It's one thing to convince 50+1% of voters that corporatism is in their best interest. It's another thing to bypass that process entirely and make policy through trade agreements with a bunch of regimes like Brunei.
Globalist policies really are the core of the issue.
If we agree that free flow of commerce benefits us as a society and trade protectionism is harmful, then the debate is between state-sanctioned liberalism (free-trade through policy and partnership agreements) vs actual liberalism (free-trade by removing trade barriers and tariffs).
The Trans-pacific agreement goes well beyond reducing tariffs, it would establish a complex array of new barriers and policies as well:
> [TPP] is a comprehensive free trade agreement, affecting trade in goods, rules of origin, trade remedies, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical barriers to trade, trade in services, intellectual property, government procurement and competition policy.
Large corporations acting out of self-interest would prefer to exploit a heavily state-controlled trade policy to gain advantages over smaller companies who can't afford the lawyers and politicians to navigate the complex legal and political process.
A purely liberal approach is not in the interest of big corps, despite the common perception that big-corp CEOs are all free-market libertarians. They want free-markets for participants, but with strong limitations in place on who can become a market participant.
One could argue that the barriers are necessary to protect consumer interests, but when the barriers (especially during instantiation via secret meetings and later during enforcement) are only navigable by large powerful companies, than the intended protections become significantly weakened. Primarily because - by side effect - the laws become easily influenced/tailored to existing companies, and therefore counter-act any long-term benefit by removing the additional consumer protections that would naturally occur via competition.
I only touched on the corporate perspective, the same sentiment applies to countries within and outside of the agreements.
I agree that globalist policies are the problem. Specifically, globalists trying to shove them ("it's good for you!") down the throats of a public that isn't on board.
> If we agree that free flow of commerce benefits us as a society and trade protectionism is harmful
That's not a premise we get to assume. It's for voters to decide. State sanctioned liberalism is anti-democratic to the extent it's not driven by voters, and so is actual liberalism, to the extent it is achieved by preventing voters from enacting protectionist policies.
These corporate interests you talk about, you do realize that (usually) about 20%-40% of stock owned by regular people and/or employees....
Further, it's in the best interest of the company to support these corporations because they hire millions of workers who pay taxes and without them this country would be as poor as Uganda.
"These corporate interests you talk about, you do realize that (usually) about 20%-40% of stock owned by regular people and/or employees...."
So, presumably then acting in a questionable manner is fine because lots of "little" people make money from it. There for, if we assume such people understand that their money comes from such practices, they must there for approve?
Ok, so, if it is so important that this corruption exists and it makes the "little man" money, then why is it such a secret? Or are we saying if fine to break laws or act in a shady way, as long as people make money?
I'm sorry, I really don't understand the point of saying that regular people and employees own some stock. I don't see how that justifies or excuses questionable practice. Besides, if its benefiting one bunch of stock holders, it must be that another bunch are somewhere losing out.
> Further, it's in the best interest of the company to support
"company"?
> because they hire millions of workers who pay taxes and without them this country would be as poor as Uganda.
You are committing the fallacy of assuming if they don't get anything they want down to the last iota, they will pick up their stuff and go someplace else. That's not true; if they could have done that, they would have done that already for tax reasons.
Yes, what Uganda is missing is powerful mega-corporations colluding with an over-reaching state. That's what makes jobs and healthy economies. And mega-corporations love to pay taxes. /s
How so? Treaties only take effect once they've been ratified by Congress. How are treaties less democratically legitimate than any other legislative act of Congress?
The major difference is that treaties aren't subject to the Presentment Clause. Ordinary legislative acts originate in one of the houses of Congress and must be approved by both houses before being presented to the President. Some congressman or senator is on the hook for having written and sponsored that bill. International treaties are given to the Senate on a take it or leave it basis, and do not require any approval from the most democratic chamber of Congress: the House.
Treaties are undemocratic by design. The framers worried that a democratic republic would not be able to present a unified front internationally. But the purpose of treaties was to govern international relations, not submarine domestic legislation under the guise of international relations.
treaties have mostly been, since 1974, a "take it or leave it" fast-track legislation. There's no ability for congress to discuss or modify them -- and there's enormous pressure to pass them -- even if some of the parts are ridiculously unfair, and would be removed in discussion.
The people who finance modern politics - their corporate donors. Who supposedly (see EFF) stand to gain power over governments if this thing passes. Including the US government.
In the US, a huge difference between a treaty and a normal law is that only the Senate is involved in ratifying a treaty. The House does not get a vote.
Which treaties were not approved and implemented by Congress? I'm not asking as a challenge but to educate myself. All the big ones I can think of were approved and/or implemented by domestic legislation.
The Kyoto Protocol does not have the force of law in the U.S. because it was not ratified by Congress--so it is not an example of what rayiner was talking about.
It's secretive because politicians can't have discussions and make deals if everything they say is picked over by their constituents and enemies. While they may end up at a trade deal that people want, they won't necessarily like how it ends up there.
For example, there may be a version 0.5 of the document where New Zealand must give up their single-buyer drug plan (Pharmac). This is, I believe, FATAL to the treaty in New Zealand. However, the US demands that it is there. They've got several drug companies who are able to see the agreement and they want it in. It will be gone by 1.0, but to do that some horse trading needs to happen.
So, everyone throws their wish list into the pot and then they negotiate to see what is on a requires list.
Now imagine what would happen if all that happened in front of the voters. Imagine if the first thing that you heard about the agreement was that Pharmac (the drug buyer) was going to be made illegal, and your drug costs were going to go up by a factor of 10.
Yeah, it'd be dead right out of the gate. New Zealand definitely doesn't want that, they want to ship food (milk solids) to the US. The US doesn't want that either... China has a free trade agreement with NZ, and since signing has become NZ's second largest export market, bigger than the US by 50%.
The basic premise of this sort of argument is that "the people don't like free trade, we couldn't have free trade if the people had input into the process." Well we shouldn't have free trade if the people don't want it.
It's not that people don't like free trade, it's that everyone wants something different out of trade, and so there needs to be some process for working out a compromise.
Every multiparty negotiation starts this way. Corporate mergers are negotiated by management and then jointly presented to stockholders. Union contracts are negotiated by union and business leaders and then presented to union members for ratification. Domestic legislation is heavily negotiated by staff before it is introduced as a bill in Congress. Etc.
> It's secretive because politicians can't have discussions and make deals if everything they say is picked over by their constituents and enemies.
Maybe they should look for another line of work then and leave it to those who can have those discussions under public scrutiny, because that's how it works in a democracy.
Is it common to have keep the contents of a trade agreement under wraps until it ships? I can't understand why anyone would want to hide the deal. If it's going to get that much backlash before it's signed, wouldn't there be similar amounts of angry response after it was inked?
Except there's effort by the Obama administration to do this "fast track", which means Congress gets it as a "take-it-or-leave-it" deal, without the possibility to amend anything.
And you can mostly rely on republicans to NOT obstruct the process, because it serves their donors well to pass this ASAP.
(Not being partisan here - I think all congresscritters are equally bad here, it's just that right now it's the dems turn to hold the "make this into law" stamp)
Alas, it does increasingly seem that the biggest difference between the two parties is which corporations they favor. Neither gives a rip about the 99% of the non-billionaire population. One side occasionally gives a nod to the fact that even the rich need non-toxic air and water, but that's about as far as it goes.
The Korea FTA was submitted under fast track rules and it still took that long.
Fast track is being held up as some sort of boogeyman, but only Congress can impose fast track rules on Congress. If they intend to amend the TPP, they won't pass fast track first.
There are thirteen other multilateral free trade agreements like the TPP. And twenty-four others that have been proposed.
The word "integration" seems rarely used in the US. These agreements represent the 2nd stage of a seven stage process known as economic integration. The seventh stage is 'Complete Economic Integration', some type of federalized supranational political union; the EU2050.
North American integration is promoted in order for the US to be economically competitive with the EU, China etc. Whether or not these are the right policies, I don't know. More interesting is that globalization seems solely defined by them without any alternatives.
If and when economical space travel (i.e. - portable fusion) is ever developed, I can only imagine the brain drain that will commence to get the Hell out of this New World Odor.
Otherwise, I guess I for one should welcome our (not so) new Multinational Corporate Overlords.
I wonder how the EFF and many readers here would feel about the secret convention that created the Constitution of the United States. There were arguably good reasons for having it done in such a manner.
Yes, but not the people for whom its used as a justification of law. Nobody alive today has consented to the constitution if you simply use the same standard of consent as used in common contract law.
This isn't an endorsement, if anything it's just positive coverage of this agreement. Take your EFF fear-mongering back to when this was posted yesterday.
As the article mentions, it's very likely that New York Times hasn't seen the agreement. Otherwise they could just leak it to the public. So what do they endorse?
The concept of a trade agreement with these nations.
However one might feel about IP enforcement, reducing tariffs and aligning similar but slightly different regulations can help economic growth in all the nations.
Positive coverage of the secret agreement they haven't actually read? Yeah, you're right. Top class journalism, no problem here. Glad you were able to make the quick transition from completely ridiculous view to mocking others though. It's a real gift that we have people like yourself on the internet.
The naivete of trying to interpret that kind of positive coverage rather than lengthy digging into why there's this kind of extensive secrecy surrounding a trade agreement that supposedly might justify this kind of positive treatment as anything but an endorsement is rather sad.
First, the NYT is engaging in the standard Brooksian/Friedmanist technique of supporting something with apparent qualifications, but actually engaging in unconditional support. That is, using the Iraq War as an example:
- I support the Iraq War, if it is done this way (describe reservations)
- The Iraq War is not done that way in the slightest
- Given the above, I support the Iraq War
The NYT supports TPP with qualifications; the TPP will not have those attributes; given the above, the NYT will absolutely support the TPP. It's a way to deflect criticism - if anyone criticizes your support, you just point to your expressed reservations.
Second, free trade has proven to be not good for the bulk of the public. Most HN commenters, having been immersed in right-wing economics, have the belief that it is somehow scientifically proven that free trade is beneficial for all, but that's not actually what the science says. The results of decades of "free trade" agreements have been to overrule local decision-making; they are profoundly anti-democratic. They've resulted in a massive transfer of wealth from the bulk of the population to a very few, very wealthy individuals. Free trade agreements are a substantial cause for the fact that most workers in the United States are making less money now than they were 30 years ago, even though their productivity has gone up massively in the meantime.
If an action X takes away $1 from each of nine people, and gives $15 to the tenth person, the total benefit for society in dollars is theoretically positive (-$9, +$15) but nine out of ten people have been harmed by it, and it's not clear that the real benefit is positive at all, because of the declining marginal utility of money. That's pretty much what "free trade" represents. Add in the anti-democratic aspects and it's clear to me that modern "free trade" agreements, negotiated in secret between the Aspen corporate elite, are something that should be roundly opposed.