Posted on 02/29/2004 1:13:49 AM PST by sarcasm
WASHINGTON: Free trade is losing support in the US, in particular among high-income Americans, as more professionals feel threatened by job outsourcing to low-wage nations.
A recent poll by a Washington research group found falling support for free trade but the shift was most dramatic among those earning more than $US100,000 ($A130,000) a year.
The University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes found the percentage of those earning more than $US100,000 who actively supported free trade slid from 57 per cent in 1999 to 28 per cent in January 2004.
These results surprised even the researchers.
"It is rare in any case that any demographic slice drops 20 or 30 points on any issue," said research director Clay Ramsay.
"It certainly provides evidence for the theory that job insecurity is creeping up the income scale."
The poll showed more white-collar Americans joining the blue-collar outcry against globalisation and cast a cloud on the ability of the US to remain a leader in free trade. It also suggested protectionist talk would rise during the presidential election campaign.
But researchers said the results showed a majority of Americans endorsed free trade in principle, even if they believed it was being handled poorly by Washington.
"Feelings about international trade have gone from lukewarm, to luker," said PIPA director Steven Kull.
"Two-thirds say they support the reciprocal lowering of trade barriers but feel more needs to be done to mitigate the effects on workers and the environment." But the trend towards outsourcing of software and engineering jobs to countries such as India had led to a rethink of the benefits.
Senator Charles Schumer wrote recently in the New York Times that free trade had to be reconsidered in light of new economic realities, notably that much of the outsourcing was going to "a relatively few countries with abundant cheap labour".
"When American companies replace domestic employees with lower-cost foreign workers to sell more cheaply in home markets, it seems hard to argue this is the way free trade is supposed to work," Senator Schumer wrote.
The new Australian FTA eliminates trade barriers on 99% of all American manufacturing exports. What's the point of discussing the 1% of products it does not cover? Or sugar, for that matter, which isn't covered at all?
It's possible to be a free-trader and understand that certain regulations concerning unfair trade practises, or sanctions against illegal conduct are necessary. What gets lost in the emotion is the fact that a company going belly-up is not prima facie evidence that "free trade," however it is defined today, is responsible. Nor is it evidence that the best response is a ham-handed effort to restrict the market.
Ultimately, the difference between a free-trader and his opponent (whatever he chooses to call himself), is that one believes that government should make it easier to do business, and the other one believes that it should be harder.
DOH!
So, all these government tariffs, higher wages, and protectionism has screwed us?
I agree with most of your post. I think what bothers most of us is the our government keeps making it harde to do business here in the States and easier to do business internationally. Were they to make easier both ways it wouldn't be much of a problem.
The grief you guys get stems from the fact that we see this and wonder/worry where American businesses fit in the global scheme. You must admit that competing with extremely low wages and non-existant regulation is virtually impossible. What makes us angry is that we see that used against us by both our government and foreign business.
It's natural to want to protect what you have. Free trade, heading in the direction that it is, is much like letting your neighboor have the same access to your property and tools but not having the same access to his. While these agreements are supposed to be bi-directional it seems as though the U.S. is holding up its end but the other guys aren't holding up their end. And, we have no way to force them to. This is where the protctionism comes in. Why should we continue to honor agreements when they aren't?
B''zzzzt. Wrong.
Not just tension (explosively so, they hoped), but destruction of sovereignty. An australian critic of free trade, PEter Myers, posted this observation.
"Free Trade -> Misery -> Social Revolution.
(1) Karl Marx on Free Trade (2) Frederick Engels on Free Trade (3) Trotskyists for Free Trade
(1) Karl Marx on Free Trade
Karl Marx's major statement about Free Trade was an address delivered to the Democratic association of Brussels, Belgium, on January 9, 1848, around the same time as he wrote the Communist Manifesto.
Karl Marx & Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Volume 6, Lawrence & Wishart, London 1976: {p. 450} Karl Marx
SPEECH ON THE QUESTION OF FREE TRADE DELIVERED TO THE DEMOCRATIC ASSOCIATION OF BRUSSELS AT ITS PIBLIC MEETING OF JANUARY 9, 1848
Gentlemen, - The Repeal of the Corn Laws in England is the greatest triumph of Free Trade in the nineteenth century. In every country where manufacturers discuss Free Trade, they have in mind chiefly Free Trade in corn or raw material generally. To burden foreign corn with protective duties is infamous, it is to speculate on the hunger of the people.
Cheap food, high wages, for this alone the English Free Traders have spent millions, and their enthusiasm has already infected their Continental brethren. And, generally speaking, all those who advocate Free Trade do so in the interests of the working class.'
But, strange to say, the people for whom cheap food is to be procured at all costs are very ungrateful. Cheap food is as ill reputed in England as is cheap government in France. The people see in these self-sacrificing gentlemen, in Bowring, Bright & Co., their worst enemies and the most shameless hypocrites.
Everyone knows that in England the struggle between Liberals and Democrats takes the name of the struggle between Free Traders and Chartists. Let us see how the English Free Traders have proved to the people the good intentions that animate them.
{p. 463} To sum up, what is Free Trade under the present conditions of society? Feeedom of Capital. When you have torn down the few national barriers which still restrict the free development of capital, you will merely have given it complete freedom of action. So long as you let the relation of wages-labor to capital exist, no matter how favorable the conditions under which you accomplish the exchange of commodities, there will always be a class which exploits and a class which is exploited. It is really difficult to understand the presumptionm of the Free traders who imagine that the more advantageous application of capital will abolish the antagonism between industrial capitalists and wage workers. On the contrary. The only result will be that the antagonism of these two classes will stand out more clearly. ...
{p. 464} Why should you desire farther to sanction unlimited competition with this idea of freedom, when the idea of freedom itself is only the product of a social condition based upon Free Competition?
We have shown what sort of fraternity Free Trade begets between the different classes of one and the same nation. The fraternity which Free Trade would establish between the nations of the earth would not be more real, to call cosmopolitan exploitation universa1 brotherhood is an idea that could only be engendered in the brain of the bourgeoisie. Every one of the destructive phenomena to which unlimited competition gives rise within any one nation is reproduced in more gigantic proportions in the market of the world. We need not pause any longer upon Free Trade sophisms on this subject, which are worth just as much as the arguments of our prize essayists Messrs Hope, Morse, and Greg.
For instance, we are told that Free Trade would create an international division of labor, and thereby give to each country those branches of production most in harmony with its natural advantages.
You believe perhaps, gentlemen, that the production of coffee and sugar is the natural destiny of the West Indies.
Two centuries ago, nature, which does not trouble itself about commerce, had planted neither sugar-cane nor coffee trees there. And it may be that in less than half a century you will find there neither coffee nor sugar, for the East Indies, by means of cheaper production, have already successfully broken down this so-called natural destiny of the West Indies.
And the West Indies, with their natural wealth, are as heavy a burden for England as the weavers of Dacca, who also were destined from the beginning of time to weave by hand.
One other circumstance must not be forgotten, namely that, just as everything has become a monopoly, there are also nowadays some branches of industry which prevail over all others, and secure to the nations which especially foster them the command of the market of the world. Thus in the commerce of the world cotton alone has much greater commercial importance than all the other raw materials used in the manufacture of clothing. It is truly ridiculous for the Free Traders to refer to the few specialties in each branch of industry, throwing them into the balance against the product used in everyday consumption, and produced most cheaply in those countries in which manufacture is most highly developed.
If the Free Traders cannot understand how one nation can grow rich at the expense of another, we need not wonder, since these same {p. 465} gentlemen also refuse to understand how in the same country one class can enrich itself at the expense of another.
Do not imagine, gentlemen, that in criticising freedom of commerce we have the least intention of defending Protection.
One may be opposed to constitutionalism without being in favor of absolutism.
Moreover, the Protective system is nothing but a means of establishing manufacture upon a large scale in any given country, that is to say, of making it dependent upon the market of the world: and from the moment that dependence upon the market of the world is established, there is more or less dependence upon Free Trade too. Besides this, the Protective system helps to develop free competition within a nation. Hence we see that in countries where the bourgeoisie is beginning to make itself felt as a class, in Germany for example, it makes great efforts to obtain Protective duties. They serve the bourgeoisie as weapons against feudalism and absolute monarchy, as a means for the concentration of its own powers for the realization of Free Trade within the country.
But, generally speaking, the Protective system in these days is conservative, while the Free Trade system works destructively. It breaks up old nationalities and carries antagonism of proletariat and bourgeoisie to the uttermost point. In a word, the Free Trade system hastens the Social Revolution. In this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, I am in favor of Free Trade.
First published in French as a pamphlet at the beginning of February 1848 Signed: Karl Marx {end}
(2) Frederick Engels on Free Trade
The text of Marx' speech was translated into English by Florence Kelley, and published with an Introduction (Preface) by Frederick Engels.
Engels wrote in the Introduction to Free Trade (published by New York Labor News Company, in one volume with another text titled Wage-Labor and Capital, 1902):
"That was the time of the Brussels Congress, the time when Marx prepared the speech in question. While recognising that Protection may still, under certain circumstances, for instance, in the Germany of 1847, be of advantage to the manufacturing capitalists; while proving that free trade was not the panacea for all the evils under which the working class suffered, and might even aggravate them; he pronounces, ultimately and on principle, in favour of free trade." (Free Trade, Engels' Introduction, p.6).
So Marx and Engels clearly knew that Free Trade might worsen the lot of the lower classes, but advocated it anyway, as a means to achieving a World State. They were prepared to endorse an evil means, to achieve what they saw as a worthy end."
Thank goodness, someone finally got it right. I congratulate you. When business and government team up, the middle class will become lower than the lowest serfs.
The politicians will reap a ton of money from the corporations who are outsourcing jobs, thus helping the politicians do away with the rights and threats from the bothersome voting public.
This is another reason our president doesn't want to limit illegal immigration. These people will work like dogs, at least the first generation will, and vote out any pesky conservatives. (Such as Tom Tancredo)
Did you pay cash for your house and automobiles?
There's stupid debt, and intelligent debt.
I refuse to be governed for the benefit of the stupid.
I also found this one in The Economist
Unfortunately, it uses 1979 as a base - after the large decline from 1975-79 as shown on your graph.
You're assuming of course, that .27 cents an hour is a bad wage there.
So then, the first problem you have with the definition is the government's involvement.
Is more government involvement then the solution?
Is more government involvement then the solution?
That makes no sense. However I don't pretend to know there is a solution.
"Free trade" like "deregulation" are catch phrases used by Republicans in the same phony way democrats use "it's for the children".
When I attempted to define "free trade", that was your response to my post. I took it to mean that you thought that there was nothing free about trade due to government imposed hiring regulations.
In other words, government regulations made "free trade" imposssible, which in turn, hurt trade.
So, my response to you was that the obvious problem was government interference, and thus, the solution could not possibly be more government interference with trade via protectionist tariffs.
Thanks for saying so. Feel free to use it against any free traders.
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