This growing rift is an earthquake fault line in the landscape of the political right. It was dormant during most of the Cold War, prevented from slipping by the cohesive pressures of East West confrontation. As those pressures recede, the risk of tremors strong enough to shake apart the Republican governing coalition increases. The World Trade Organization is but the latest multinational entity threatening to override America's laws and Constitution. Its secret tribunals can shove aside environmental and other regulations imposed by our elected lawmakers.
Nationalists see America dissolving into a world government.
The multinational corporations shaping WTO policies for their own advantage have no loyalty to America or its workers. They wish to erase trade barriers so they can move American manufacturing jobs to Third World nations and pay workers there 50 cents a day, but bring goods tariff-free into the U.S. market and undermine the American standard of living while reaping astronomical profits for themselves. Billionaire global trader George Soros believes that a free and open society depends on a balance between self-interest and society's common interest. This selfish aspect of capitalism increases social disparities, straining and shredding the fabric of society. Entrepreneurial capitalism creates dynamism and change.