Populism vs. Nationalism

I think this is a useful distinction:

A poll victory for economic nationalism, by Jacob Weisberg, Commentary, Financial Times: The bums, or at least many of them, have been thrown out. So the political conversation turns to the question of what the Democrats will do now... While it may be too soon to answer that question, we have seen enough to be alarmed about one tendency in particular: economic nationalism...

Most of those who reclaimed Republican seats campaigned against free trade, globalisation and any sort of moderate immigration policy. That these Democrats won makes it likely that others will take up their reactionary call...

There is an important distinction to be made between economic populism and economic nationalism. Many of Tuesday’s Democratic victors stressed familiar populist themes: corporate misbehaviour and tough times faced by working people. ... Raising the minimum wage (which Republicans foolishly failed to do before the election) is a classic populist position. Opposing Bush tax cuts for the wealthy is another. But in places where Democrats made their most impressive inroads ..., one heard a distinctly different message of economic nationalism. Nationalism begins from the same premise that working people are not doing so well. But instead of blaming the rich at home, it focuses its energy on the poor abroad. The leading economic nationalist today is probably Lou Dobbs, who natters on against free trade, outsourcing, globalisation and immigration...

The most prominent nationalist candidate this year was Sherrod Brown, who unseated incumbent Senator Mike DeWine in Ohio, a state that has lost 200,000 manufacturing jobs since George W. Bush became president. Mr Brown is the author of a book called Myths of Free Trade: Why American Trade Policy Has Failed. Here is a snippet from one of his television advertisements: “Sherrod Brown stood up to the president of his own party to protect American jobs, fighting against the Mexico and China trade deals that sent countless jobs oversees.” For some reason, economic nationalists never seem to complain about job-killing Dutch or Irish competition. The targets of their anger are consistently China and Mexico, with occasional whacks at Dubai, Oman, Peru and Vietnam.

One heard similar themes in the other pivotal Senate races. ... A much harder-edged nationalism defined many of the critical House races, where Democrats called for a moratorium on trade agreements, for cancelling existing ones, or, in some cases, for slapping protective trade tariffs on China. These candidates also lumped illegal immigrants together with terrorists and demanded a fence along the Mexican border. In Pennsylvania, Democratic challengers defeated Republican incumbents by accusing them of destroying good jobs by voting for the Central American Free Trade Agreement and being soft on illegal immigration. “Fair trade” candidates also won back formerly Republican seats in Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, North Carolina and Wisconsin.

Economic nationalism is not unique to Democrats – nor is it a new theme for them. The protectionist wing of the party first emerged in the 1980s when America’s manufacturing decline was linked to imports. ... But during his 1992 campaign, ... Mr Clinton espoused a free-trade position and embraced globalisation through his presidency. This set the direction for his party despite significant resistance in Congress. Mr Clinton’s argument was always that government should address the negative consequences of open trade through worker retraining programmes and by ensuring benefits not tied to employers, like healthcare and portable pensions. But the human capital part of Mr Clinton’s globalisation agenda never went anywhere, which partially explains the current backlash. ...

It would be going too far to say that the 2006 election ushers in a new protectionist consensus. But free trade has definitely left the building.

The populist, economic nationalists versus the populist, economic globalists.

I think Democrats should leave the globalist-nationalist debate aside and focus on areas of agreement first - implementing smart populist policies - because once that's done, the nationalist arguments will be less compelling and hopefully will then fall by the wayside. Here's a similar view:

Thus, ... the best road forward [is] to (a) make the Democratic coalition politically dominant through aggressive populism, and then (b) to argue for pragmatic reality-based technocratic rather than idealistic fantasy-based ideological policies within the Democratic coalition.

Comments

[evagrius]

I like the distinction and agree with most of it, howver, I have some reservations.

For instance, the "free-trade" agreements with Mexico and Latin America are not good for anyone, in my very humble and ignorant view, ( I expect experts to bring up facts etc; to rebut my point). One example, that anti-immigration fanatics don't pay attention to and that is rarely brought up; the U.S. is exporting corn to Mexico! ( Kinda like sending coals to Newcastle). Mexico is the historical source of corn, ( maize). The result is that peasant farmers, ( in the very region where corn was developed), are unable to grow corn at a livable profit and are forced to migrate to the cities for jobs. Interestingly enough, these peasants are not Spanish-speaking for the most part. They speak,rather, one of the many indigenous Indian languages, since they are Indian, not mestizo. Quite a few have immigrated to the U.S. where, when they need aid, social services have to find a speaker of those languages, ( rather difficult at times).
So- here's a situation where American farmers,( or rather American agricultural corporations- the farmers are just employees),heavily subsidized through tax breaks, etc; using farming techniques that are environmentally destructive, sending cheap corn to the home of corn, where traditional farmers, using techniques honed over millenia that preserve the soil etc; are forced, ( through the magic of the free market?), off their lands, being a major cause of recent illegal immigration to the U.S.
I'm sure there are other similar trade practices causing similar problems.
I'm all for populism, but that populism has to be directed towards all types of population, not just the American one.
I'd really like to see the Congress re-examine all international trade agreements and ask, seriously, do these agreements benefit those who have the least to say but are affected the most.
I'm sure that the poor Mexican Indio illegal, having lost his farm, his way of life, his pride and culture, is not very happy having to find work in Gringoland just as Americans are not happy seeing him in their midst.
I don't think the new Congress will, but there's always hope.

[lonesome moderate]

Things are hardly perfect there now, but Mexico has progressed enormously since the days before NAFTA, by almost any statistical measure. Per capita income, literacy, life expectancy, infant mortality, you name it--everything has improved enormously since the early nineties.

The Mexican peasants are abandoning the land because it was horrendously overpopulated and has been worked to death by generations of close-to-the-bone subsistence agriculture. NAFTA accelerated this process, but hardly started it. There are many reasons why Mexican corn growers can't compete, but the biggest factor is the land simply isn't as productive as it is in Iowa or Illinois. Meanwhile, fruit and vegetable production is migrating from the USA to Mexico, since Mexico has a milder climate and a big supply of cheap labor--a classic case of comparitive advantage. Why is this bad?

I think the Mexican government is making a huge mistake by not involving itself more in the American debate on free trade. They have a very compelling story to tell, but for some reason they are reluctant to tell it.

[Mark Thoma]

John Konop:

I warned you not to misrepresent my position again. Your comment was deleted. You never say anything new anyway, just the same old tired cut and paste rants so nobody will miss a thing.

You might think of finding somewhere else to spew.

[evagrius]

I knew " experts" would come. The land in Mexico isn't as "productive" as in Iowa or Illiinois? Right. Before or after oil-based fertilizer and tax subsidies?
So- the U.S. is getting some tropical fruit and vegetables-through cheap labor- that's nice- but meanwhile, the peasants are forced off their land.

You don't get it. Of course, you're not an Indian peasant who has lived on his/her ancestral land for generations, where the bones of your ancestors are buried and where their spirits speak- you've abandoned your ancestors, ( when they come to haunt you- you get a shrink to drive them away- the Indios don't have that sang-froid), and wandered off- a lost soul-typical of the Anglo-Protestant culture that Samuel P. Huntington speaks so glowingly of, ( I'm being snarky here).

[save_the_rustbelt]

I'e been spending time in Michigan and the campaign commercials by both parties, but especially the Democrats were quite explicit - "we will protect your jobs and find ways to bring new jobs to Michigan."

And I think everyone has seen what happened in Ohio, for multiple reasons, but primarily the economy, the GOP was drubbed badly.

The middle class will only take so much, and the backlash has begun.

(On a somewhat related note, the bankruptcy judge in the Dana Corp. case (auto and truck parts) has refused three executive incentive proposals, because the execs should not get incentives while the workers are getting screwed, this is quite unusual.)

PS: Mark, thanks, John Konop was getting long and tiresome - I'm tiresome but not windy :-))

[adam]

evagrius-

i don't know about the specific example that you address but farm subsidies in developed countries were also the reason the last wto round (doha) collapsed.

it seems as if free trade in the west means don't touch our ag subsidies. not a reason to throw nafta out entirely but something that could use some work.

most trade agreements phase out subsidies over time. don't know the particulars on nafta but obviously the farm lobbies of the developed nations are quite an obstacle to free trade worldwide.

unfortunately, in an interview with likely future speaker pelosi, she said that the alternative energy strategy she wanted to pursue was heavily skewed towards midwestern ethanol production. this wouldn't really be ideal in my mind but further proof of just how powerful the farm lobby is.

[evagrius]

adam- Yes. That's the problem. Why should agri-business have so much power to decide anything?

Agri-business is not "small" farmers in the Mid-West U.S.A. It's large corporations.

Meanwhile, the opponents in the discussion ARE small farmers.

Where's Adam Smith in all this?

[anne]

Remember, though we have not discussed the matter there is fierce discontent now and again regionally in Mexico; discrimination by class and ethnicity that is always worrisome.

[anne]

http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F20812FC34580C708CDDAA0894DB404482

March 3, 2003

Why Mexico's Small Corn Farmers Go Hungry
By Tina Rosenberg

MEXICO CITY - Macario Hernández's grandfather grew corn in the hills of Puebla, Mexico. His father does the same. Mr. Hernández grows corn, too, but not for much longer. Around his village of Guadalupe Victoria, people farm the way they have for centuries, on tiny plots of land watered only by rain, their plows pulled by burros. Mr. Hernández, a thoughtful man of 30, is battling to bring his family and neighbors out of the Middle Ages. But these days modernity is less his goal than his enemy.

This is because he, like other small farmers in Mexico, competes with American products raised on megafarms that use satellite imagery to mete out fertilizer. These products are so heavily subsidized by the government that many are exported for less than it costs to grow them. According to the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in Minneapolis, American corn sells in Mexico for 25 percent less than its cost. The prices Mr. Hernández and others receive are so low that they lose money with each acre they plant.

In January, campesinos from all over the country marched into Mexico City's central plaza to protest. Thousands of men in jeans and straw hats jammed the Zócalo, alongside horses and tractors. Farmers have staged smaller protests around Mexico for months. The protests have won campesino organizations a series of talks with the government. But they are unlikely to get what they want: a renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or Nafta, protective temporary tariffs and a new policy that seeks to help small farmers instead of trying to force them off the land.

The problems of rural Mexicans are echoed around the world as countries lower their import barriers, required by free trade treaties and the rules of the World Trade Organization. When markets are open, agricultural products flood in from wealthy nations, which subsidize agriculture and allow agribusiness to export crops cheaply. European farmers get 35 percent of their income in government subsidies, American farmers 20 percent. American subsidies are at record levels, and last year, Washington passed a farm bill that included a $40 billion increase in subsidies to large grain and cotton farmers.

It seems paradoxical to argue that cheap food hurts poor people. But three-quarters of the world's poor are rural. When subsidized imports undercut their products, they starve. Agricultural subsidies, which rob developing countries of the ability to export crops, have become the most important dispute at the W.T.O. Wealthy countries do far more harm to poor nations with these subsidies than they do good with foreign aid.

While such subsidies have been deadly for the 18 million Mexicans who live on small farms -- nearly a fifth of the country -- Mexico's near-complete neglect of the countryside is at fault, too. Mexican officials say openly that they long ago concluded that small agriculture was inefficient, and that the solution for farmers was to find other work. ''The government's solution for the problems of the countryside is to get campesinos to stop being campesinos,'' says Victor Suárez, a leader of a coalition of small farmers.

But the government's determination not to invest in losers is a self-fulfilling prophecy....

[anne]

That Mexico will not look to China on matters of rural need and hard infra-structure, and education, when Mexico has far more in resources for rural development, is troublesome and self-defeating. Also, Mexico has not followed China in negotiating over technology transfer in trade and investment. Class needs are seemingly a mere afterthought in response to election threat only.

[anne]

Development must be by design, and Mexico has chosen no design, as we have had no design for Puerto Rico which is part of America. Development must be by design. China is designing development, how is it that Mexico has not done so and we have not looked to Puerto Rico in design?

[anne]

Remember, we have China talking development and commerce and assistance with almost every African head of state. China conducts state visits through Africa and Africa turns to Beijing and there is talk everywhere of planning, but we are spending $10 billion dollar a month on the tragic lunacy in Iraq and never a thought that we might turn to and plan for Ohio, let alone Puerto Rico.

[DRR]

What really gets me is the commentators who, (rightly) protesting the meme that this was a victory for "moderate" "centrist" or "conservative", arguing that a lot of these Dems are economic leftists, purely on the grounds that they oppose free trade. This of course conveniently ignores, that a number of prominent conservatives and republicans also oppose liberalized trade & immigration for reasons that have nothing to do with concern over the plight of workers.

The majority of Dems in the "Blue Dog Coalition" in addition to being pro-life social conservatives, also oppose these trade deals, and support tougher immigration measures. I guess they are big time economic leftists too.

[save_the_rustbelt]

DRR:

Many of the protectionists Democrats in the northern states are old line progressive leftists.

Many of the southern Democrats are not.

Nancy Pelosi will have her hands full. She will need to use the honeymoon period very effectively and very quickly.

[save_the_rustbelt]

"...But the human capital part of Mr Clinton’s globalisation agenda never went anywhere, which partially explains the current backlash. ..."

About a decade too late this may be partially resurrected, but to little avail. The horse already left the barn.

[anne]

Actually, the South remained almost as Republican as before. Georgia, possibly more so, for instance. The Democratic wave, a populist wave possibly or mildly, was almost entirely beyond the South.

[anne]

There is of course a resolution to populist restiveness, and the resolution is economic planning. Bill Clinton could never have managed that with Republican opposition. Planning, yes, planning. Find a way to meet the needs of Alicia and you are meeting the needs of Ohioans and not striking out at Mexicans.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/09/international/americas/09mexico.html?ex=1270699200&en=002dab476b252724&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland

April 9, 2005

At 15, Dreaming Big Dreams: Oh, to Be a Scholar
By TIM WEINER

MEXICALI, Mexico

ALICIA ÁLVAREZ lives two miles from the American border and light-years from the American dream.

Growing up in Mexicali has made her a realist at 15. She has no taste for romances and soap operas. Harry Potter stories and a horror movie at the mall are as far away as fictions take her from her city's heat and dust.

Alicia has a fierce intelligence, and it fires her only soaring ambition: to get a decent education, schooling that could lift her up and out of her surroundings into a better life. It looks to her as likely as a trip to Mars.

"It seems impossible," Alicia said with a shy, distant gaze. She has started high school, having proved herself one of the brightest girls in her city, a straight-A student with an exceptional aptitude for math.

"My family has no money for college," she said. "I probably will never get to a university, though I would love to.

"My education has been hard. My teachers are trained in teaching, not in math and science. It's a struggle for them to teach me what I need to be taught. To learn what I want to know. And I want to know so much."

She finds herself, like her country, poised with one foot in the door of opportunity and one stuck in the poverty and powerlessness of the past. But with her fine mind, the idea of having a better life than one's parents, while distant, is still a shimmering possibility.

Her father, David Osuna, 46, works part time selling used cars. He has good weeks and bad weeks. Her mother, Alicia Álvarez, 48, keeps house. They have provided their children with the basics of life: food, clothes, shelter. Their slender, dutiful, deep-thinking daughter is a bit of a mystery to them.

Alicia's brothers, David, 21, and Luis, 16, are in awe of her intelligence, respectful, sometimes distant. David is the one in whom she sometimes confides her dreams....

[anne]

Imagine ways to care for Alicia, and the ways are applicable here, everywhere, as Franklin Roosevelt understood:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/09/international/americas/09mexico.html?ex=1270699200&en=002dab476b252724&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland

At 15, Dreaming Big Dreams: Oh, to Be a Scholar
By TIM WEINER

ALICIA'S uncle and godfather, Abel Álvarez, 56, knows her aspirations. He grew up behind a plow, and then crossed over the border when he was her age to work the fields of the Imperial Valley in California. He now earns a good living in construction, a self-made man who builds malls in El Centro, Calif., 15 minutes north of Mexicali.

He has watched Alicia grow up with a mixture of pride and worry.

"It's not a lot easier growing up in Mexicali now than it was 40 years ago," he said. "The pie's a little bigger, but a lot more people want a slice. Growing up here, you go up against all that, and with the United States and all its riches just over the line."

Mexico's economy has been flat for almost five years. Poverty is ever-present. The middle class is small; it has been shrinking for a generation. Stealing into the United States is often the only way out.

Alicia has seen what is over the line, having traveled with her uncle and cousins on short trips to Los Angeles, San Diego and Riverside, halfway between Los Angeles and Palm Springs. "I love Riverside best of all, it's so pretty," she said. "So much greenery, so many trees. It's the cleanest, greenest place I've ever seen."

But Alicia says the idea of sneaking across the border to live and work holds no attraction for her. "I don't want to migrate," she said flatly. There is no legal path for her, and she does not want to be an outlaw.

She is a bit better off than many other young Mexicans, especially the millions living in the countryside whose families struggle for enough to eat, and she would not risk what little she has for a gamble in a strange land.

Still, Alicia sometimes feels the walls of her cinder-block house closing in on her. The heat rises above 100 degrees in Mexicali for almost half the year. The house is crowded, and the closeness sometimes chafes at family life and familial love.

"We quarrel sometimes," she says. "We don't always get along. My parents don't always think the way I do." When the little house gets too hot, too close, she finds refuge in books, or when there is a little money to spare, alone at the movies, at a mall a mile from home on the edge of the city, near where the desert begins.

She has become, of late, more of a loner, though she has a best friend, Karen Aguilar. "She is my one close friend, Karen, and no one else," Alicia said. "We grew up together. We shared secrets and all that. We used to spend all our free time together. But now she works, and I have to study, and time seems so short." ...

[anne]

"Mexico's economy has been flat for almost five years. Poverty is ever-present. The middle class is small; it has been shrinking for a generation. Stealing into the United States is often the only way out."

But, how is this possible? So, China can host the leaders of 50 countries in Africa in Beijing and we have no idea what is happening in Mexico or why or how what is happening there effects us in happening here.

Why are the leaders of Africa not in Los Angeles or New York or Chicago? Development needs there are our development needs, though we are ever so much richer.

[anne]

Can we begin to understand the lunacy of thinking our interest rests in the terribleness of Iraq, at a cost that is beyond comprehension, and we deal with Mexico by building a wall complaining all the while. What would happen in Ohio with a federally subsidized health care and state college tuition program alone? Not tuition loans, but minimal tuition. We are spending less on energy research and development in a year, than 10 days in Iraq. Think.

[evagrius]

Thanks anne, for the documentory support, ( I remembered the facts only vaguely, stuck in my memory as a curious but essential fact).

The problem with Mexico is linked to class and race. I know it sounds bizarre to most Americans, but all Hispanics know these facts so well that they overlook how unusual they may seem to outsiders, ( somewhat the same as the U.S. South and its treatment of blacks).

There are three basic classes in Mexico- each defined by "race" and level of wealth- the "Espnanols" or Spanish, ( i.e. "whites), the mestizos, ( "mixed race" of Spanish and Indian, ( who form the majority, but not everywhere, of the population)) and the Indios or Native Americans. The Spanish are, of course, at the top of the ladder.

This distinction is prevalent all over Latin, Central and South America, ( in Brazil, the situation is more complex since there are blacks of African descent- and that is also a situation in other South American countries where slavery once existed).

Economic power is in the hands of the Spanish- they have never, never, given up that power at any time except under the threat of revolution etc; by mestizos and Indios. The mestizos have obtained some power but not enought to really have any real say in affairs. The Indians are, of course, the losers. The Revolution under Benito Juarez in Mexico is a case in point. He was a full-blooded Indian but died before being able to truly bring a revolution. Mexico ended up under Porfirio Diaz, a mestizo, who ruled as dictator under, basically, the sawy of the Spanish. It's pretty much been the same in Mexico since his overthrow.

No decision regarding Mexico or the other countries in Central or South America will ever be really just until the groups that have been marginalized are included.

The situation will not change until pressure is brought to bear upon the ruling class- but since they share much of the same racist attitudes as the ruling class in the U.S., I doubt that change will occur soon.

Anti-immigration folks should look at the racism inherent in Mexico's, ( and the other Latin countries), as a source for the immigration problem. But being racists themselves, they can't see the complexity.

( If anyone thinks the ruling elite in the U.S. is not racist- just read a little of Samuel Huntington- I know, I've repeated it often enough, probably tiresomely but his attitude is not that exceptional among those who share his background and education).

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/09/international/americas/09mexico.html?ex=1270699200&en=002dab476b252724&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland

SHE has once or twice held hands with boys. There have been "little kisses," but nothing else, she says. She is not ready for the intensity and confusion of sex. Her mind is growing fast. But her body is starting to catch up. Sometimes she feels that when she looks in the mirror, she sees a different person every day.

"I know I'm changing," she said. "I'm not the same as I was when I was a child. But I'm not grown up either.

"There have been guys who say they want to be my boyfriend," she said. "I tell them no. I tell them I don't want that. I tell them I'm special. I'm different. I haven't been attracted to them. I tell them that, and sometimes it makes me feel ugly. But no one whom I've been attracted to has asked me.

"Boys are not what I think about, not that much," she said. "What I think about when I'm alone is growing up. Because I have to grow up, I have to think about high school, and then how I am going to find a way to go to a university despite having no money? If I get there, what I am going to study."

Mexico has made strides in public education over the past 25 years, particularly in primary schools, but not nearly enough. Only one of seven children entering first grade finishes high school.

"Maybe half the students who finish eighth grade don't have access to a good high school," said Rafael Rangel, chancellor of Tec de Monterrey, Mexico's most prestigious university. "We haven't built enough high schools or trained enough teachers. It's a terrible situation. Many of the kids who do make it through high school have no access to a university."

"There's no bigger problem in Mexico," he said.

If Alicia is struggling for answers, so is her country. Her life is a long list of questions, including the biggest of all: what she will be when she grows up.

"Maybe the best I can hope for is to find a teacher in high school who can teach me accounting, and then a job keeping the books at some business," she said. "Still, I would love to be a real scholar, to go to a university and make my life better than that."

[anne]

No matter; we came from Franklin Roosevelt's vision to building a darn 3 thousand mile wall or whatever with not the slightest sense even of what a Great Wall might be. Heck, at least do the thing right.

[anne]

Curious, how complex inter-relationships are:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/14/international/americas/14mexico.html?ex=1268542800&en=883d1d3e2a0e0bb4&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland

March 14, 2005

Chain Saw Thins Flocks of Migrants on Gold Wings
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.

CONTEPEC, Mexico - Homero Aridjis, a poet and naturalist, can remember years when monarch butterflies filled the streets here in his hometown like a living torrent of orange and black and stayed all winter on the fir-covered mountain rising above the village.

Not this year. The colony of butterflies that arrived here in November was tiny and retreated up the mountain, as far away as possible from the lower slopes where loggers have thinned or destroyed the forest the butterflies depend on.

"There used to be rivers of butterflies, but now there are years when there are no butterflies at all," Mr. Aridjis said as he climbed the mountain of his youth recently. "This is a village full of ghosts, not of people, but of nature, a paradise lost."

The tourists still come, but there is not as much for them to see. This is a small town of 10,000, like many in Mexico, dominated by a church and a school in rolling fields at the foot of Cerro Altamirano. The country people here still work on their small farms, but in recent decades the town's adobe houses have been replaced by uglier cinderblock buildings, and rusting automobiles outnumber burros and horses.

Not only are there comparatively few monarchs in Contepec, but the numbers that came to weather the winter at five other forest sanctuaries in central Mexico also dropped sharply this year.

Two storms killed most of the butterflies spending winter here in 2003 and 2004. But these reproductively hardy insects have bounced back before. In 2002, a storm killed about 80 percent of wintering butterflies, but the next summer, they found perfect breeding conditions in the central United States and southern Canada.

Last summer, though, cold and wet weather in the American corn belt kept the diminished population from regrouping. The number arriving this winter was the smallest since Mexico and the World Wildlife Fund began keeping records in the 1970's, down three-quarters from the winter before, the wildlife fund and independent biologists said.

Biologists and nature lovers say bad weather is not the whole story. They warn that logging in Mexico and herbicides in the United States have endangered these almost miraculously migratory insects, which flutter thousands of miles.

Hardier genetically altered corn and soybean crops in the United States and Canada, in the breadbasket areas that are the monarch's main summer conjugal grounds, have enabled farmers to use stronger herbicides to eliminate weeds. That has drastically depleted the supply of flowers on which the butterflies feed, as well as common milkweed, on which the monarch lays its eggs in the spring and summer and on which its larvae feed, several biologists say.

The drop in butterfly counts is staggering....

[anne]

Imagine what might be done for Mexicans and Americans by simply figuring out how to protect a butterfly that can by miracle migrate hundreds and thousands of miles. There is an environmental problem with profound human economic consequences in the solving.

[save_the_rustbelt]

Anne:

I presume you saw the Ohio results.

The GOP candidate for governor conceded before the votes were counted - a real whupping. Same for Dewine.

Protectionist and populist sentiment are running wild in the rustbelt.

[evagrius]

Yes- to destroy beauty like the monarch butterfly is terrible- and the butterfly is a symbol of the soul- ( the butterfly emerging from its chrysalis was often used by the ancient teachers as a symbol of resurrection).
To destroy the soul for money. That is what we've come to.

[jm]

History will probably rhyme, just as usual. The last time we had such high rates of immigration and such unrest from trade imbalances -- back in the early 1900's -- the result was heavy restrictions on immigration, and the Smoot-Hawley tariffs.

The failure of economists to speak out forcefully with outrage against the blatant Asian exchange rate manipulation back in the days when the resulting trade imbalances were still small, and effective countermeasures could have been taken without massive disruption, is inexcusable.

What the Asian ruling elites have been doing is basically the same as what the managements of Nortel and Lucent were doing during the telecoms boom -- running a huge vendor-financing scam, loaning customers the money to buy their nations' products without regard to whether the loans can ever be repaid. Since there are no auditors to call them to account, this will inevitably continue until the imbalances grow so large as to impinge on some external constraint, which will most likely be a new set of US protectionist tariffs.

[Peter Schaeffer]

Evagrius,

I don't know if you regard me as an "anti-immigation fanatic" or not. However, the burden of NAFTA on Mexico has not gone unnoticed within the immigration reform community. Below you will find two prior posts of mine.

There is a funny note here. Some of my critiques of neoliberalism have deleted from other blog sites. Apparently it is more acceptable to take contentious positions on immigration than to suggest that U.S. agricultural subsidies might NOT be responsible for all that is wrong with the world. It appears that my deepest heresy was to suggest that NAFTA (and free trade in general) might not be an unmitigated blessing for Mexico.

“Mexico has both positive and negative trends. None of the data shows that Mexico is overcoming its historical obstacles to fast growth. Indeed, the shift towards neoliberalism (including NAFTA) appears to be an obstacle, not an aid.

America does subsidize various crops. However, neoliberal theory holds that such subsidies are a net benefit to the importing nation (I don't buy this by the way). Indeed, China's overvalued currency is usually defended as "helping" US consumers by making imports cheaper (which is true). Why shouldn't cheap(er) food imports be a plus for Mexico? I can think of lots of reasons. However, neoliberal dogma rejects them all.

A larger point is that corn is a global crop. Do you really think that American subsidies dramatically influence the global price of corn? Cotton is much more heavily subsidized than corn. However, most estimates show that cotton prices would only rise by 11% if all (not just US) cotton subsidies were abandoned. See the FAO report on this subject (http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/focus/2005/89746/article_89759en.html). The same number for corn would be considerably lower.”

“Worse, US farm exports devastated rural Mexico triggering a tidal wave of illegal immigration that is savaging much of America today. Any gains to America farmers (wheat and corn are global commodities) were trifles compared to the vast costs to our overall society.

The net is that NAFTA has been a disaster for both countries. AMLO, to his credit wanted to repeal many of the agricultural provisions. Of course, cheap labor elites in the US and crony capitalists in Mexico have done well… And they have their apologists...”

[Peter Schaeffer]

Evagrius,

The immigration reform community is very aware of Mexico's race and class problems. Should I post links?

[ninjaplease]

"You don't get it. Of course, you're not an Indian peasant who has lived on his/her ancestral land for generations, where the bones of your ancestors are buried and where their spirits speak- you've abandoned your ancestors, ( when they come to haunt you- you get a shrink to drive them away- the Indios don't have that sang-froid), and wandered off- a lost soul-typical of the Anglo-Protestant culture that Samuel P. Huntington speaks so glowingly of, ( I'm being snarky here)."

Sooo..... Their comparative advantage is that their ancestors are burried beneath them acting as some sort of fertilizer? Since economic agreements appear to be icecold to the needs of real live people everywhere, please tell me, what is their comparative advantage? Desperation?

Do these "Indios" "just need to go to get trained as X-Ray Technicians, PERL & CSS Coders to share in the fruits of globalization?"

Since we've all taken math at some level here, can we use that unique skill to calculate how many "losers" are created by each trade agreement and weigh that number against the actual
"winners?"

nothing says irony like:
(Read the dates)
http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/05/31/intel_to_lay_off_16000/

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35490

and

I think I found the economic model that we're follwing in America:
http://www.asianews.it/view.php?l=en&art=5489
Yeap, it's those stupid workers who need to go and get educated... that's the problem right there.

Why Anne,
What a great model for all of Africa to follow:
http://www.asianews.it/view.php?l=en&art=2478
http://www.asianews.it/view.php?l=en&art=2527
http://www.asianews.it/view.php?l=en&art=4912

http://www.asianews.it/view.php?l=en&art=479
(note the date on the above link)

http://www.asianews.it/view.php?l=en&art=7694
(now note the date on this link above)

http://www.asianews.it/view.php?l=en&art=5529

and of course where would productivity be with:
http://www.asianews.it/view.php?l=en&art=5000

Triangle shirt-waist style management.

And then there's Democrats to the rescue:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15627780/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15031505/

nothing says free trade like:
"About 85 percent of Malaysia's exports to the United States are already exempt from duties under a programme aimed at increasing trade for developing countries, while U.S. exports to the country face tariffs of 6 percent or more." Source: MSNBC

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15506047/

[ninjaplease]

And of course...

"Bill Gates says West not supplying enough IT talent
Tue Nov 7, 2006 12:46pm ET20"

Source: Reuters
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?
type=topNews&storyid=2006-11-07T174625Z_01_L07799513
_RTRUKOC_0_US-MICROSOFT-TALENT.xml&src=rss

while:
"Slowdown Forces Many to Wander for Work
IT Unemployment Now Exceeds Overall Jobless Rate

By Greg Schneider
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 9, 2004; Page A01 "
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles
/A35193-2004Nov8.html

and

http://online.bcc.ctc.edu/econ/kst/BriefReign/BRwebversion.htm

[evagrius]

ninjaplease;

Sooo..... Their comparative advantage is that their ancestors are burried beneath them acting as some sort of fertilizer? Since economic agreements appear to be icecold to the needs of real live people everywhere, please tell me, what is their comparative advantage? Desperation?

A rather rude remark- These people don't have any comparative advantage. The comparative advantage is to their "betters".

Peter Schaeffer- the immigration reform folks you read may be aware of the problem, ( as are most people in Central/ Latin America), but the Minutemen aren't- and they're the ones with the media attention.

[lonesome moderate]

"Mexico's economy has been flat for almost five years. Poverty is ever-present. The middle class is small; it has been shrinking for a generation."
"NAFTA has been a disaster for both countries."

http://www.atlapedia.com/online/countries/mexico.htm
https://cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/mx.html
http://www.uis.unesco.org/profiles/EN/EDU/countryProfile_en.aspx?code=4840

Since the late eighties/early nineties, Mexico's per capita GDP has more than doubled, from $4,000 to $9,000. Life expectancy has increased by five years, and infant mortality has dropped in half. Literacy has increased from 87% to 92% (97% among those aged 15-24), and the proportion of children attending secondary school has increased by half (from 44% to 64%). How is this a disaster?

Yes, tens of millions of the children of Mexican farmers have left the land. And, for the most part, this has been good for both them and the country. Illiterate, desperately poor peasants clung to the land because that was all they had. Their better educated children have been given the opportunity to pursue a better life elsewhere, and many of them have done exactly that.

[evagrius]

lonesome moderate;

You sound the same as those who justified the highland clearances in Scotland during the late 1700's early 1800's.
The same as those who justified the potato famines in Ireland.

After all, those were "illiterate" peasants "tied" to their land.

Better that they become deracinated proletariats, immigrating to the big city.

As for your statisticics, yes, it is an improvement- but those improvements could just as well have occured in the countryside as they have in the cities.

[Peter Schaeffer]

Evagrius, Lonesome Moderate,

Actually both of your views have merit in different places and times. Japan fiercely protected its rural sector after WWII and greatly eased social discontent by doing so. China should do the same now.

Conversely, the Irish who came to America because of the Potato Famine prospered over time. Keeping them in Ireland wouldn’t have been an improvement, at until quite recently.
.

[evagrius]

Peter Schaeffer- Yes, the Scots and Irish emigrated, much to their pain. Yes, they have made great contributions because of it.
But it wasn't voluntary immigration- it was forced.
There's still a lot of pain, unacknowledged in many cases, that's multi-generational.

I find it interesting that France is also encouraging the resettling of the countryside, slowly but surely. It too has fierecely defended its agricultural culture, ( a bit unfairly but then, the small farmer in France, as in Japan IS small).

The destruction of the Indian cultures in Mexico is the large reason for the rise of the Zapatistas. It's also part of the protests in Oaxaca. It's also the reason for the election protests that continue.

When the Indians leave, that's when deforestation occurs at a fast rate. That contributes to later environmental costs, but those get paid by the Indians who remain, not the rich who profit.

You should read B. Traven's novels on Mexico- still topical.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/11/international/americas/11chiapas.html?ex=1284091200&en=dc36499ed9c1f1c9&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

September 11, 2005

Where Poverty Drove Zapatistas, the Living Is No Easier
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.

PATIHUITZ, Mexico - The shooting war between the Mexican government and Zapatista rebels in these fertile hills ended long ago, but the struggle for the hearts and minds of ordinary people like Rigoberto Álvarez goes on, with no clear winner in sight.

Mr. Álvarez spent 15 years in the Zapatista rebel army, training in the mountains of southeastern Mexico, but quit four years ago, at the age of 46. Why? He had eight children he could not afford to educate. The government was offering cash incentives for each one in school.

"If I don't find a way to put them through school, my children won't learn to read and write any more than I do," he said as he waited for hours recently under a broiling sun for the chance to enroll his son in a new secondary school. "The struggle is too long. I am already old."

In recent years, the government has poured more money into roads, health clinics, schools and electrification projects in the mountainous backcountry where the Mayans live. Patihuitz, for instance, has electricity, running water and the new secondary school (the classes are to be held in a borrowed house). Officials have handed out cash scholarships and roofing materials.

The Zapatistas, who long ago ceased to be a military threat, have set up communities that reject government aid and organize community projects. In some places, they have also set up farming cooperatives and small factories.

But the grinding poverty that provoked the first rebel uprising in 1994 continues to trap the Indians. Neither the rebels' attempts at self-government nor the government's antipoverty programs have done much to change the odds against indigenous children in these rugged, jungle-covered mountains, according to Mayan farmers inside and outside the Zapatistas.

"It's the same as it ever was," said Manuel Marín, a 46-year-old farmer in Patihuitz, as he gathered beans from one of his fields. "There is no way to change this life."

Many adults are barely literate and speak little or no Spanish. Most of the schools the government has built are too small. Secondary schools are scarce and charge enrollment fees.

The new clinics are often short of medicine. And while the cash grants for children in school buy food and clothes, they are not large enough to make saving possible, many parents say.

"Chiapas continues to be the poorest state in the country, as it was in 1990," said Julio Boltvinik, a professor at the College of Mexico who studies poverty. "The indigenous people really don't have anything that we would call a humane, dignified, modern developed life. They are living in an abysmally precarious state."

Nearly everyone works hard, but there is little profit for most. The 1994 free-trade agreement with the United States has driven prices for corn and beans brutally low. Government crop subsidies and supports have disappeared, erasing any gain from new welfare programs.

As a result, farmers here must spend more to grow crops like corn than they can make selling them. So most now farm only a small section of their land, growing just enough corn and beans to survive and leaving the rest fallow. They look for other ways to earn cash, either hiring themselves out as labor for better-off farmers in the region or migrating to northern Mexico or the southern United States to pick fruit, several said.

"Things are going down the tubes faster and faster," said Peter Rosset, an American professor who runs a center for agricultural policy in Oaxaca. "You can't spend your whole life selling things for below the cost of production. That leads you to move to L.A."

Complicating matters has been the protracted conflict with the rebels, who, in January 1994, marched out of the Lacadona jungle and took over seven towns and dozens of large ranches, dividing the land among poor farmers who used to work on them for about 70 cents a day. A year later, the army drove the guerrillas, led by Subcommander Marcos, back into the mountains. Since then, an uneasy cease-fire has reigned while peace talks have dragged on without resolution.

The rebels have declared they will not cooperate with the government until it fulfills promises it made in a 1996 accord to allow Indians to govern themselves to a large extent in regions where they are the majority. In 2003, frustrated with the inaction of Congress, the Zapatistas pushed ahead on their own, setting up five governmental centers with clinics and schools to oversee dozens of what they call "autonomous municipalities."

The region, as a result, is a patchwork of rebel-run villages, military bases established by the Mexican government and villages where pro-government Indians are a majority. Army trucks with troops rumble up and down the roads. Rebel centers are closed to most outsiders and reporters....

[adam]

mexico has a very protected economic elite that fight the emergence of any competition. even to many of them it is a joke but they don't want change.

i used to work with a guy that basically grew up middle class and went to college in mexico. his parents had a nice middle class lifestyle as, what would be called here a notary public.

as he told it, if you needed a document to become official, you brought it to his parents who would then sit on it for a few days just because that is what you do. keep things slow. no competiotion needed. maybe next week you get your document.

contrast that to a more vibrant economy where, you can find this service for free or a $2-3 charge in about 1 minute. no way you earn a middle class living slowing down the system.

mexico's entire economy works like this. chilean economist hernando desoto has written about this stuff extensively.

[dissent]

"Actually, the South remained almost as Republican as before. Georgia, possibly more so, for instance. The Democratic wave, a populist wave possibly or mildly, was almost entirely beyond the South."

This is a good thing. The political culture of the South - corrupt, exploitative, cronyistic - needs to be regionally isolated for the good of the nation as a whole. The recent period of Republican dominance showed what happens when Southern political culture goes national.

For years the Southern Democrats were contained within the Democratic party. When the southerners went Republican, rather than being contained, they took over the national party.

If Southern political culture dominates, our course will be like Argentina's: decline.

The Democrats, and the country, need the same thing: a Democratic Party which is pluralistic, with a strong moderate and yes even (culturally) conservative wing. This kind of party can reach the compromises which the nation needs for crafting effective and successful policy.

As a long-term resident in Pelosi's district, I believe she understands this.

[adam]

dissent

"The political culture of the South - corrupt, exploitative, cronyistic - needs to be regionally isolated for the good of the nation as a whole."

you've obviously never followed chicago politics! ha!

[dissent]

I grew up in Chicago. I was born on the South Side during the reign of Daley the first.

But seriously, on a national level, my point is solid. I suggest a book by Michael Lind, "GWB and the Southern Takeover of American Politics."

Also, the corrupt political culture of Chicago is not the corruption that sells out and abandons the interests of the city for the privleged few. I'm not sure why it works but Chicago is widely considered to be the best governed large city in this country. The corrupt political culture of Chicago produces ... competence. Go figure!

[johnchx]

jm wrote:What the Asian ruling elites have been doing is basically the same as what the managements of Nortel and Lucent were doing during the telecoms boom -- running a huge vendor-financing scam, loaning customers the money to buy their nations' products without regard to whether the loans can ever be repaid.

This is a good analogy. And it brings up some interesting questions.

Let's say I'm a bank, or a private investor. I see that a company that wants me to lend it money is running up huge -- probably unsustainable -- debts to its vendors (e.g. it's the recipient of irresponsible vendor finance from Nortel). Why would I lend it any more money? Why wouldn't I try to unload any of its bonds (or stocks) that I happened to own already?

The analogy is to private investors who continue to hold dollar-denominated assets. They can see perfectly well what China, a handful of other Asian countries, and the oil exporters are doing. Why aren't they pulling their credit out just as fast as the Asian central banks and the oil exporters pour it in?

The stability of the dollar remains a mystery, at least to me.

[adam]

dissent-

well if you've kept up with matters recently, actually state-wide as well, both parties have been getting their collective butts kicked by the feds.

former repub. governor going to jail. current dem's leading fundraiser nailed just two weeks ago. the entire city govt in chicago in big trouble.

drunk's bosses forced to promote them because they knew the right alderman. i'll put last year's front page of the trib up against any book that focuses on any one party.

[adam]

evagrius-

just listened to brad delong talk about the corn issue in mexico. interesting point he made is that nafta was supposed to phase out corn tarrifs in mexico over a 10 yr. period. instead the gov't of mexico lowered them much more rapidly, imported the cheap corn and basically caused rapid displacement themselves.

treaty was negotiated by bush sr's guys and that upon taking office loyd bentson (clinton treasury guy i think) said why wasn't this negotiated over a period of 2 generations instead of 10 yrs. but it didn't matter in the end.

[ninjaplease]

"A rather rude remark- These people don't have any comparative advantage. The comparative advantage is to their "betters"."

Reread my statement. Sarcasm, you've heard of it?

[evagrius]

ninjaplease- Sarcasm needs to be a little broader than what you stated.:)

[Ray Tapajna]

Before any discussions about Free Trade and Globalism, there is a need to define terms better and arrange cause and effect in proper sequence.
First of all Free Trade is not trade as historically practiced and defined. Today this so called trade is based on moving production from place to place for the sake of cheaper and cheaper labor. The real commodities are human beings who are put on a world trading block to compete with one another for the same jobs in a Global plantation setting. How can something be considered trade if the manufacturing is moved to other countries and the very same products come back to the orignal country while the local value added economies in balanced geopolitcal settings are chopped up into pieces and shipped around the world.

Next, Free Traders do the old Abbott and Costello comedy routine of -who's on first, etc. President Bush says the reason there is a massive migration of workers from Mexico to the USA is because workers in the USA will not take certain jobs. Then what is happening in Mexico after the U.S. has moved more than 4000 factories to that country? Mexico reports a low unemployment rate just like the U.S. does - so, there are many Mexican who will not take the available jobs in Mexico. Mexicans refuse to work for a $1 an hour or less just like Americans find it nonsensical to work for jobs less than miminum wages. The numbers do not add up to a sustainable life.
As far as cause and effect are concerned the following facts must be noted. The U.S. Federal Government sponsored the moving of factories outside the USA starting in 1956. It was supposed to be a temporary measure to help out the Mexican and Central American economies. The programs never ended and evolved into the Maquiladore factory programs which then evolved into what is called Free Trade. Prior to the passing of the NAFTA trade agreement in 1992, more than 2000 factories were moved from the USA to Mexico. Some made a long turn around trip from Asia being moved there first. After NAFTA was passed in 1993, the number quickly doubled to more than 4000 factories. Millions of Americans lost their jobs in the process and a working poor class was created in the USA with a destitute working class created in places like Mexico. Soon after getting NAFTA passed, President Clinton who forced the vote with a Democrat controlled Congress in passing both NAFTA and GATT, had to rush billions of dollars to Mexico to save the Peso.
Today, many of the factories moved to Mexico are on the move again to places like China for the sake of even cheaper labor because Mexican workers will not work for impoverished wages and have an outlet in the USA to flock to for work. China is even contracting work out to other countries that have even cheaper labor markets than China has.
In the end, we worry about border security while the Chinese Liberation Army in essence rolls across the USA. You can see COSCO logo on shipping containers flash by on our railroads across the USA. COSCO is the giant shipping company owned in part by the Chinese Liberation Army. COSCO also ships military weapons and missiles across the world. The only other country in the world that produces and ships more is the USA.
This is the state of world under Globalization and Free Trade. Before doing any fancy economic comparisons about this or that, we need to take in the real world from the streets of USA and other countries. It is indeed a race to the bottom. Free Trade is like a dog chasing its own tail.
For more information see
http://tapsearch.com/tapartnews/
Exploring the Flat World of Thomas Friedman Globalist Free Trade lost worlds, see
http://tapsearch.com/flatworld
http://tapsearch.com/flipflatworld
And read about the "unetted" - Globalists ignore the fact that workers have no voice in the process of Globalization and Free Trade with a new "ism" combining raw capitalism with state run Communist companies. Free Enterpise is squashed like a bug.