Grand Theft Argentina

Hey, but apart from ALL that, they're alright!.............NOT.

Resist these blood sucking, selfish, evil, heartless, capitalist and imperialsistic scum at every turn. Any which way...........every day.

RESISTANCE is fertile.

Viva!

Name me one country that prospered under protectionism.

Well the free trade/protectionism dichotomy is a distraction since you can't have free trade under the co-ercive, dispossessive social relationship that is capitalism. One country that prospered under protectionism? Britain didn't do to bad did it? - building up textile industries behind protective barriers whilst the imperial army smashed rivals (india), then embracing 'free' trade once the market was pacified ...

Ricardo set out 4 conditions that must be met for free trade to be *mutually* beneficial, not exploitative and wealth concentrating, none of which are met in today's world economy. Its therefore pretty obvious that these policies, whatever the egalitarian rhetoric about 'convergence' etc are design to subjugate and expolit. In fact the whole application of 'comparitave advantage' theory today is to force some economies to be low-added value raw materials producers, some to be cheap manufactured goods producers, some ('the west') to be capital investment/banking/hyperreal economies. From the theory of mutual benefits to the practice of 'know your place'...

Yeah, the British textile industry is really thriving now, ins't it?

Dear sceptic, for your info every single rich western nation has used trade barriers and protectionism to get to where they are, protectionism is rife in the US EU etc. It is only when a country is in a position of strength does it insist that all other nations should open their markets and be 'free' - for the rich to take advantage of them, (whilst still protecting their own fragile industries of course - e.g. look at our farming subsidies, without them our farmers would go bankrupt in this 'race to the bottom' economy).

Emerging markets and trading nation states have no chance in a free market against the western multi-nationals who can offer huge bribes to their elites and desimate the local competion through sheer scale of operations and powerful friends. Of the few non-western countries who have become reasonably prosperous (bearing in mind that all the wealth is still usually captured by the top tiny minority) they have done so by ignoring the dictates of free marketeer pro western business institutions of the IMF, World Bank et al and have protected their flegling indutries, these include the so called 'tiger economies'. Just look at the countries who did follow the orders of the WB IMF etc they have been trashed by capital flight and the destruction of any of any 'value added' industries that actually create some wealth. Look at Latin America most countries there were forced to open up markets and they are in a mess, why do think so many left leaning govts are coming to power, it's because they've been shafted. All that comes out of these countries is 'non value added' stuff like very very cheap commodities like coffee, the farmers and local economies get very little whilst the multi nationals who buy the cheap commodities make a fortune roasting, packaging and selling them on in western markets. (Buy Fair Trade by the way, it does make a difference to the local communities).

Anyway, here endesh the lesson. But for more info check out things like the Trade Justice Network and the World Development Movement and War on Want are pretty informed as well. I suggest you do the same.

One thing we agree on: dismantling trade barriers cuts both ways, and Europe and America should dismantle their agricultural subsidies, for one.

But you're tangling up free trade with other issues: the corruption in many of these countries that means that people are poor not because of free trade but bad governance.

Free trade meant South Korea can make ships cheaper than in Britain, and Malayasia can make cheaper cars. We tried for years to protect shipbuilding in the UK and it failed. The same with cars. And it was not the West that killed the industries, but what we would have called Third World countries not long ago.

There are some markets no one's really going to break into, such as large passenger aircraft.

But you're looking at it from the the producer end, not the consumer. India had trade barriers against cars for years: you could buy an Ambassador, or an Ambassador, or ...
The lack of choice meant tht the producers had a captive market: they could provide any trash, and you bought it or did without. That's why in the end trade barriers fail: better goods start leaking in round the edges.

You do not become successful by locking yourself away aganst the world.

A couple of quick points as this is a sprawling issue..

Unfortunately global trade, free trade, multinationals and corruption all go hand in hand.

South Korea and Malaysia would never have advanced to the point where they could even contemplate competing on a global scale in heavy manufacturiung industries like ship building and car making without protecting and subsidising those industries when they were at a fledgling level. It's also worth pointing out that industries like ship building moved to the third world because of next to no legislation protecting the environment or the wellfare of its workers. The western ship buyers will get cheaper ships but who else benefits in this 'race to the bottom'.

Finally of course I am focusing on the producer, most people in the world are not consumers as you and I are. Most people in India couldn't dream of buying a car, no matter what make it is. The producers of the world need a fair deal for their labour and commodities, an opportunity to develop 'value added' goods to trade and a level playing field in which to trade. This means Fair Trade not Free Trade!!!!

Yes, Korea started its shipbuilding by paying low wages. As a result, the country grew richer. Now it has a high GDP and its workers are better paid. That's how thng work. Jobs go to low cost economies; those economies become richer. One of the fallacies is that this is a zero sum game: making some people richer does not make some people poorer.

And I'm sorry, we're all consumers, every one of us - whether it's of cars or of bicycles or of shoes. Some of us are also producers.

Don't keep telling me to read Chomsky et al - been there, done that. The thing that I notice most is the use of abstract nouns and adjectives. As a humble scientist, I like empirical evidence.

Now, it is taken as read in these circles that privatisation is a bad thing. SO let's look at the British experience - not as a theoretical exercise, but empirically.

BT - you're probably too young to remember how in the days of the GPO when a wait of a month for a phone line was not atypical. Can you imagine the Post Office supporting mobile phones? Far too imginative a concept. Do we have an efficient telecomms now? Hm, surprise - we do.

British Gas: there's a Monty Python sketch which is fairly meaningless today, about someone trying to get a part for their gas cooker, and the line of engineers and sundries stretching down the street. They were overmanned and bureaucratic. So - fewer workers, more efficient. Horror! Job losses! Now, can you tell me the point of employing people who in effect had no function? How productive is that? Like digging holes and filling them in again. Yes, provides jobs - but to what purpose? And has gas provision suffered?

Electricity: are things worse or better?

Airlines: there used to be 2 airlines in the UK: BOAC and BEA. Now anyone who wants to can start an airline. Oh, look, cheap fares. What a surprise.

Steel, coal, shipbuilding, aircraft industry - all state owned. Why? What does Whitehall know about steel production? Sod all.

A humble scientist? Golly, we better not argue with you.

For empirical evidence re:the wizardry of capitalism, look at Argentina (above).

Capitalism has survived as long as it did as a result of the props and and mirrors of John Maynard Keynes. As a result of his policies and strong trade union movements, wealth was distributed resulting in demand for goods and services. This hybred of capitalism and socialistic wealth distribution worked relatively well until a few decades ago. Notice the direction we have been going in the past number of decades. Prior to that, there was optimism - new plants and infrastructure were going up. Now they are coming down.

As far as the zero sum game goes - for workers in *post* industrial countries it's worse than a zero sum game where workers are forced into a race to the bottom. Capitalists are manufacturing where it is cheapest to do so. THAT is the nature of capitalism - maximization of profits above all else.

The new terrorist laws are not there to stop more buildings from being bombed. They are there to enforce the new world order. Worker are facing increasing austerity and poverty. The social safety nets are being torn to shreds at the altar of pyschopathic profit hunger. The Keynes carrot is dead. The facist stick has made its appearance.

Britain may be classed as *post* industrial society. Britain has enjoyed atleast 13 years of continuous economic growth. By any measure, all sections of society have benefitted. Some may have benefitted more than others, but all have benefitted.

If you're going to maintian that workers are facing economic austerity and poverty, give us some figures.

Try

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/vote_2005/issues/4469615.stm

...compared to the US or Canada. If you had a Conservative govt here, you'd see the full effects of globalization. The situation for the poor and for workers in these countries is deplorable.

The mines and closed here and programs were put in place to curb the effects of the de industrialization of the country, thanks to govt spending and assistance from Europe. No such luck for the Canadians and Yanks.

There is a choice perhaps. Keep Keynes alive or brace for revolution.

The situation for workers in the US and Canada is deplorable? Odd that, considering the number of people who are trying to get in. You'd think everyone would want to get out.

Anyway, I thought globalisation was an American device to make themselves richer.

Also odd that US figures have shown family income increasing. They're becoming richer and more desperate? This does seem to be something of a paradox.

Have you been to visit any American cities lately?

Persue this link a bit:
 http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article311066.ece

Substantial industries are moving to where goods can be produced by desperately poor people. Children in some cases.

A proper apologist for capitalism will argue, 'isn't tht a good thing - at least they're better off than they were before'.

Am I right?

And the jobs being created in post industrial countries are service jobs and McJobs. There is nothing like working for a tyrannical employer that may fire you on a whim to make you shut your mouth about unions.

Also, you mentioned Korea - (speaking of bosses arbitrary power). I've lived there. I've seen what workers there are facing with capitalism in the raw. It ain't pretty.

A nice article that describes the talks...

Mar del Plata Spin Cycle

Monday, Nov 07, 2005


By: Joaquín Bustelo - Marxmail

That whirring sound you hear are the spinmeisters of the Bush administration trying to prettify the outcome of the Mar del Plata Summit of the Americas into something suitable for U.S. public consumption.

To briefly recap: Argentina, which was hosting the summit, set (as Lula put it) a 3-point agenda: "jobs, jobs and more jobs." Or as the official conference slogan had it: "Creating Jobs to Fight Poverty and Strengthen Democratic Governance"

Bush went to Argentina empty-handed on this score and nevertheless wanted to get the Free Trade Area of the Americas negotiations, which had basically crashed and burned at a Miami ministerial level meeting two years ago, restarted.

Bush was met with a week-long alternate summit, a mass march and rally of tens of thousands on Friday morning and violent street protests in the afternoon while President Nestor Kirchner welcomed the summiteers with a brief speech where he said Argentina wasn't about to go down the road of "economic growth" without job growth. Been there, done that, and at the end people didn't even have enough money to buy the T-shirt. It's time to find another road.

The event was marked by an unusual amount of tension, reflected in the cancellation of multiple press briefings and even a banquet. Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela took a firm position that the conditions did not exist that would make it possible to have a fair FTAA. And thus no matter how many ways the Bushites and their Latin American acolytes tried to square that circle, and get the five to accept at least some nice-sounding noises about the FTAA in the final communiqué, the five wouldn't budge.

But it also pissed them and lots of other folks off that Bush basically hijacked the meeting away from a discussion of job creation to a fruitless two-day wrangle over setting the date to negotiate over the FTAA, which was basically the U.S. demand.

That's because Brazil has been very clear. It's not going to let the Americans do to its agricultural sector what was done to Mexico, where Mexico dropped its tariffs and was invaded by an ocean of ultra-subsidized U.S. agricultural products. The U.S. said to Brazil and others in the FTAA, so sorry, we're going to talk about subsidies in the Doha round of the WTO negotiations. Not here. So Brazil said, well, then there's really no point in talking about an FTAA right now until we see what happens in the WTO with these subsidies. That's basically Argentina's position, too.

In the end, a "compromise" was reached -- the position of both the pro and anti FTAA camps would be in the final statement. In other words, the United States was forced to accept having the final communiqué record the position of the five that until and unless the imperialist countries do something about their agricultural subsidies and other trade-distorting swindles, not only wasn't there going to be a deal, they weren't even going to waste their time talking about it.

This position is entirely reasonable. The United States has refused to engage on its monstrous subsidies to agribusinesses in the framework of FTAA talks. It claims it can't on account of it is already negotiating about the same thing in the Doha round of world trade talks.

But the U.S. still wants countries like Brazil and Argentina to eliminate their tariffs so that the ultra-subsidized U.S. corn, wheat, soybeans, etc., can nuke their rural economies, just as they have already done to Mexico and are now doing to Central America. In other words, areas in which the U.S. wants concessions from Latin America are on the table; but even in the same sectors of the economy and even the same specific commodities, the U.S. isn't even willing to talk about what it might give.

In Latin America there is a rather vulgar description of such a deal which involves bending over and the lack of a use of Vaseline. And, not unreasonably, these five Latin American countries, with the clear sympathy of the majority of people in the region, invited the United States to apply that procedure to itself.

Comes now the Washington Post, to describe how well Bush did in Mar del Plata.

"In Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's version of Latin America, the leaders who concluded a two-day summit Saturday are poised to ignite a unified, region-wide socialist revolution that rejects U.S.-style capitalism outright.

"But if the summit proved anything, it was that there is more to Latin America than Chavez."

That's the LEAD of the article -- I kid you not. That dastardly dude Hugo Chávez, was on the verge of having folks like Vicente Fox join him on the barricades in a revolutionary overturn more earth-shaking than any since the October Revolution. But St. George the Bush slew that dragon.

"Instead of backing their Venezuelan counterpart's rallying cry to bury a U.S.-backed proposal that would link markets throughout the Western Hemisphere, the leaders reluctantly agreed to discuss the proposal again during future talks. Cautious skepticism -- not Chavez's tone of enraged dismissal -- emerged as the strongest unifying force in a region exploring the possibility of greater independence from U.S. influence."

One of the curious things about this "agreement" that the Washington Post talks about is that they don't quote it. There is literally no reference anywhere in the story to the official document that issued from the event. Instead there is a recapitulation of some of the reasons why Latin Americans hate U.S. imperialism in general and George W. Bush in particular, all as a way of saying that given this, Bush did OK.

The Miami Herald takes a similar tack: "Bush is bruised but not beaten in talks. President Bush faced harsh criticism from Latin American presidents over a free-trade proposal, but no clear winners and losers emerged."

Remember, these are the imperialist-inspired "hemispheric summits" that Clinton launched under the aegis of "the Washington Consensus" for neoliberal globalization a decade ago in Miami. "The Spirit of Miami" would lead by 2005 to the biggest and most powerful trade block the world had ever seen.

And here we are, in 2005, and not only is there no free trade area of the Americas, but the "Spirit of Mar del Plata" has replaced the spirit of Miami. That spirit was expressed in the alternative summit and the big demonstration of tens of thousands of people repudiating Bush's visit. But it was also clearly echoed in the official summit itself -- and not just by Hugo Chávez.

"U.S. policy not only generated misery and poverty but also a great social tragedy that added to institutional instability in the region, provoking the fall of democratically elected governments," Kirchner said at the summit Friday. "We must create a kind of globalization that works for everyone, and not just for a few."

Compare that to the halcyon days of the mid-1990's when TINA --There Is No Alterative-- was the watchword. Faith in the "free market" religion has collapsed throughout Latin America as working people have seen what it means in practice. And even bourgeois politicians (well, at least some of them) are smart enough not to parade before the people mounted on a horse that's dead.

The Herald quoted with a straight face this official U.S. assessment: "It turned out well," said U.S. assistant of state for Latin American affairs Tom Shannon. "Chávez came to Mar del Plata to bury FTAA. Instead he resurrected it. He provoked a very deep debate among the leaders about FTAA," he told The Herald.

Sure. I believe it. The U.S. *really* wants a big debate about the FTAA. That's why they're always inviting Fidel to these summits. NOT.

All of the bourgeois press emphasized that the division was between the big majority (29 countries) and a small minority (5). None even mention that the five are really six, because Cuba is excluded from the talks but it is part of the hemisphere and there ain't no way it's going to join the FTAA. Nor that together the six represent 275 million of the 580 million Latin Americans (excluding colonial subjects) which is 47% of the region's population and in reality the bulk of its economic muscle.

You can contrast the U.S. press coverage to the way it was covered elsewhere. "Bush faces Latin fury as popularity sinks at home." is the headline in the Independent. The FT says, "Bush is single target of multiple complaints." The BBC reports flatly, "No trade deal at Americas summit."

The BBC quotes the typical U.S. spin (basically, that it was really good because no one torched copies of previous pro-FTAA summit declarations, at least not during the official sessions):

"The US National Security Adviser, Steven Hadley, spoke of 'real progress'.

"'We went from a summit which was supposed to bury FTAA to a summit in which all 34 countries actually talk in terms of enhanced trade ... recognizing there are challenges,' he said."

The Spanish news agency EFE, however, had a very different take:

"The 'Spirit of Miami' failed in Mar del Plata"

"Eleven years and successive fruitless meetings had to pass before the so-called 'Spirit of Miami,' which promised an Americas united by free trade, would fail in Mar del Plata, 11,500 kilometers to the south of the place where the 'integrationist dream' was born.

"Miami and Mar del Plata, hosts of the First and Fourth Summit of the Americas, close the circle of a process that was initiated in 1994 when the political stage of the hemisphere looked very different from what it does today."

We'll see now what happens today in Brazil where Bush will attend a barbecue thrown by Lula.

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