I found a lot to agree with in Jared Bernstein and Lori Wallach’s article at American Prospect on globalization. Particularly this:
Today’s FTAs, of which the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is Exhibit A, are not mainly about cutting tariffs to expand trade nor are they about jobs, growth, and incomes here in the United States. Rather, they’re about setting expansive “rules of the road†that determine who wins and who loses.
One of the things that’s frequently missed is that it doesn’t have to be that way. Pigouvian taxes could be levied on winners and the proceeds used to aid the losers. That doesn’t happen which makes one wonder if picking the winner were not the objective of the agreement in the first place.
Measures that the authors advocate for changing the “rules of the road” on globalization include:
- Enforceable currency disciplines
- Enforceable and substantive labor and environmental rights and standards
- Rewarding those who play by the rules
- Selecting appropriate trade partners
With respect to the last the authors remark:
Bad actors that violate worker and/or human rights or have long records of currency cheating will not become good actors if we simply invite them to trade more with us. Sadly, there is considerable empirical evidence from past U.S. trade initiatives with China, Vietnam, Russia, and other nations that supports this view.
I think the problem is actually somewhat worse than that. In the case of intellectual property China has laws that protect the intellectual property of foreigners. They just aren’t enforced and China does not have a robust system of civil law so there’s no practical way to secure redress when your intellectual property is not enforced. Consequently, the laws are meaningless.
