From: demon@desire.wright.edu (Stupendous Man)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.mexican,soc.culture.usa,soc.culture.canada
Subject: Re: NorthAmerican Free Trade Agreement.
Summary: So, what would you have us do instead?
Date: 19 Aug 92 07:33:55 GMT
Article-I.D.: desire.1992Aug19.023355.3594
Organization: Demonic Possesions, Inc.

In article <1992Aug18.120054.9311@panix.com>, gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
> One thing to notice about the "Free Trade" agreement is that
> it isn't really free, and may actually operate to reduce free
> trade.  In regard to trade alone, there is nothing to prevent
> the signatories from increasing the barriers to trade with
> Europe and Asia -- in fact, they may be required to by one
> another.

	There's no reason to assume that NA will become an armed camp out to
destroy other armed camps like EC and some conglomeration of Asian countries. 
Once the success of NAFTA become evident the logical extension is the rest of
the world.

> In classical liberalism, 

	Government intervention is rampant.  Thus the tariffs, quotas, etc. 
Free trade has nothing to do with classical liberalism, except as something
that is never achieved by it.

> free trade involves things besides
> goods.  In the current agreement, capital and its handlers, the
> upper classes in general, will be able to move and act across
> national boundaries, but ordinary people will be as restricted
> as ever.  That is, labor will still not be allowed to move
> freely.  This situation makes it possible to create zones of
> low wages, bad working conditions, and poor environment and
> play them off against other zones.

	Not at all.  Low wage areas attract businesses, which pay higher wages
to get better works, who earn more and buy more....

	Environmental impact need not be ignored.  There is nothing to stop the
NA zone from implementing environmental costs as part of the costs of
production instead of externalizing them.

> Finally, true political freedom has apparently not yet been
> achieved in Mexico in the sense that the electoral process
> appears to be regularly overridden by the dominant party.  In
> such a situation, we can expect (and find) a government which
> can be manipulated by big corporations to the detriment of
> its people.

	See "Derailing the Reagan Revolution, part III" for a different
opinion.

> Canada, also, does not have free speech in the sense that the
> United States does, but I suppose special provisions have been
> made to allow the authorities there to shut out what they
> don't like.
> 
> On the whole, NAFTA is not what it calls itself.  It may be
> to the advantage of the rich, to great institutions and
> enterprises, and to abstractions like GNPs; but so have the
> policies of the United States for the last 20 years, while
> the median real wage has fallen.  If the wage continues to
> fall, and if, as predicted, 500,000 U.S. jobs move south,
> the present depression may deepen (nobody to buy the goods)
> and political reaction -- of a protectionist, nationalist,
> and even fascist sort -- may leave us worse than we are
> today.  The NAFTA was constructed by the high and mighty
> for their own benefit, and as usual they forgot that they
> need millions of backs to stand on.

	It's funny to hear people who don't think NAFTA goes far enough say
that we thus shouldn't do it at all.  Plus that the same people who decry the
economic disparity between the US and third world countries are now whining
about the export of jobs to those very same third world countries.

	So which is it?  Economic parity or US protectionism?  Freer trade or
none at all?

Brett                                                      
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