I was struck today, as I have been for the past several weeks, at the void created when John Edwards suspended his campaign for president. Today, it was on the issue of trade and globalization, courtesy of a piece in The Wall Street Journal entitled "Decoding Candidates On Trade."
Here's an important paragraph, with my bolded emphasis:
Neither Mrs. Clinton nor Mr. Obama is likely to be able to do much about trade deals already in effect, despite their campaign rhetoric. Neither, even in the heat of the Midwestern spotlight, is talking about new barriers to trade. The Depression-era Smoot-Hawley tariffs aren't coming back. And the Democrats' trade hard-liner, former Sen. John Edwards, has dropped out of the race.
Now, understand first the frame of the piece. First, the Journal regurgitates the by-now discredited view promoted by proponents of so-called "free trade" that tariffs caused or exacerbated the early 20th-Century Depression. That's pure nonsense (for those of you interested in the "Smoot-Hawley" reference--think Al Gore debating Ross Perot; Gore, then, and perhaps now, an ardent believer in NAFTA and so-called "free trade", displayed the picture of Representative W.C. Hawley, and Senator Reed Smoot in his debate about NAFTA with Ross Perot on Larry King).
Second, to be against so-called "free trade" is, in the Journal's world, and in the world of many of the inside-the-Beltway lobbyists--the special interests that Sens. Clinton and Obama both decry--to be a "hard-liner."
Let's examine again what it means to be a hard-liner:
Edwards took a huge swing at corporate lobbyists by singling out the NAFTA-like Chapter 11 rights. As I explained (and Public Citizen has a much more detailed explanation): Let's say a company doing business in a country that has a party to one of these so-called "free trade" agreements believes a law violates rights or protections the company has under the trade deal. The company can take its case before a trade tribunal, which can, then, rule that a law--say an environmental law or labor--is illegal under the so-called "free trade" regime and award tax-payer dollars to corporations. And this tribunal operates behind closed doors, with no public input or scrutiny and none of the basic due process or transparency one would expect in open courts.
Edwards' position was really important. These Chapter 11 rights are one of the most odious provisions of so-called "free trade" deals. They allow companies to undercut our democracy--laws that are passed by the people we elect can be overridden by an unaccountable, unelected tribunal. Edwards stood up and, effectively, said he would not sign trade deals with these undemocratic provisions.
Neither Sen. Clinton or Obama have made that specific pledge. Too many people think that globalization is just a slogan to mouth without looking at the rules that are governing trade. The fact is: globalization is nothing new. We've traded ever since humans walked on the earth. We need to stop being enthralled by the slogan "globalization" and think about how we set up rules that govern those trading relationships.
As the Journal points out, on trade:
It's hard to tell their positions apart. In the Senate, both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama voted for a recent trade accord with Peru. Both voted against a Central American trade pact. Both oppose the South Korea deal.
If you don't take on the Chapter 11 rights, all the other statements--calling for "timeouts" on trade (as if trade deals are little children you can sit in a corner for a little bit until they calm down) or saying you will "review" (Sen. Clinton) or "amend" (Sen. Obama) NAFTA--are meaningless. You are basically accepting the basic framework--the basic rules of the game--of so-called "free trade."
I would submit that millions of workers here, and around the globe, face a serious problem if we aren't very careful about the political leaders, and their policies and beliefs, that we ratify when it comes to globalization and trade. If the calls for change are real, I find this troubling (the reference to the "former president" is to Bill Clinton):
Until his campaign reached the Midwest, Mr. Obama sounded like the former president. "Like [Clinton Treasury Secretary] Bob Rubin, I am optimistic about...the ability of U.S. workers to compete in a free trade environment -- but only if we distribute the costs and benefits of globalization more fairly across the population," he wrote in his 2006 book. The big-company chief executives who belong to the Business Roundtable say almost the same thing.
[my bold added]
So, is that what we face, for example, in an Obama Administration? A philosophy that is, effectively, Rubinesque, in its view that we embrace the "free trade environment"? I am open to the idea that a President Obama would change his views about so-called "free trade"--as did John Edwards over time (so as to avoid the tiresome argument, yes, Edwards voted for so-called "free trade" during his tenure in the Senate); and, I assume, that in addition to wanting to be with a perceived winner (we don't know how that will turn out quite yet), unions that are now moving to support Sen. Obama are hoping to influence his thinking.
I would humbly suggest that, in the generalities that get foisted upon us with great flourishes, we have not shifted the debate about what the rules of globalization should be. Yes, the movement against so-called "free trade" has successfully halted the passage of more of these corporate-driven deals. But, at this point, the debate is confined to Rubin on the one hand, and people like former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who was one of NAFTA's big proponents and helped Bill Clinton push that deal through, who said in a previous Journal article last fall:
"It's unfortunate that the Democrats are willing to describe trade as part of the problem," says Robert Reich, President Clinton's labor secretary. He worries the current crop of Democratic contenders will undo Mr. Clinton's progress and potentially enact policies that hurt economic growth. "It's pandering to a misconception in the public. The truth is that trade is good for the U.S. but that some people are burdened by it far more than others. We've got to make them all winners, but you don't make them winners by attacking trade," he says.
Reich, Rubin, Sens. Obama and Clinton are all playing within the same rhetoric: the trade framework we have is right and, so say the "change agents", we just have to change it a bit to make everyone "winners" (this is typical Reich empty crap), in part, by putting more money into retraining people when they lose their jobs.
You see, making everyone "winners" does not mean that they get decent work. When we accept the idea of retraining workers, we accept the framework of discussion about the economic system that is being imposed on workers here and abroad. Boiled down to its basics, it goes something like this: "globalization" is inevitable so just get over it. There will be pain for some because that is the cost of progress. To ease that pain, we will throw some money at the "problem" of displaced workers. And, then, presto, everyone turns out a "winner."
It's a lie. Typically, I find that the people most in favor of the concept of retraining are those people who think they are never going to lose a job to so-called "free trade." That would be our elected officials, pundits, and a whole lot of economists. A whole lot of other folks buy the idea that this is a fair deal—without understanding both the realities for the people who are losing jobs and, frankly, that so-called "free trade" is driving down wages even for those people whose jobs are not directly tied to international trade.
The problem with education, and the subset called "retraining," is that the global economy is based not on competition over skills but competition based on wages. No matter how smart you think you are—and, by the way, those people who say we have the smartest workers in the world should pay attention to the racist sentiments inherent in that idea—there will always be someone who will do your work for less if there is no minimum standard. So, education, which in the abstract is nice, is the wrong answer to the question of how people will have any kind of economic stability.
Anyway, that's why we, or at least I, miss John Edwards' voice.