Speaking of free trade… The free traders have an ambitious agenda ahead of them in the next term of congress. A couple of agreements, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA) are almost certain to come to a vote. Since these two possible trade agreements are conceptually very similar to the grand-daddy of these things, NAFTA, the same sort of tactics are being used to sell them (lying, corruption, intellectual bullying) and the same crowd of opponents (labor, people worried about trade deficits, economic nationalists, historical literates) lining up to fight the good fight yet once more. Before these last elections, it didnt look especially promising for TPP/TAFTA. The opposition isnt so easily bullied anymore—especially since we have discovered post-NAFTA that free trade is FAR more likely to cause real economic damage than any benefits it may have in theory. But a large crop of senatorial newbies will probably prove easy pickings for the next round of trade agreements. And Obama is as likely to sell out to the neoliberals as Clinton was at the end of his presidency—and largely for the same reasons. Because I was a nobody from noplace, they didnt even bother to acknowledge my opposition to NAFTA. On the other hand, William Greider was not so lucky. He wrote an insanely great book on the problems of the free trade manifestation of neoliberalism entitled One World Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism. For writing this carefully crafted work of thoughtful, investigative journalism, Greider was treated to intellectual bullying by no less than Paul Krugman. Just because Krugman can be found considerably to the left of much of the economics profession these days, this does not mean that compared to the economic center of thought as late as 1974, Krugman is deep down a hopeless right-wing stooge. And his treatment of Greider is exhibit A. Unfortunately, Krugman is WAY over his head in this debate. Not only is Greider arguably the most important writer of his generation, on this subject he was almost completely right and Krugman was wrong. So for laughs, Greider here reminds Krugman just how wrong he was.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 18:03:41 +0000
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