NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #26/NN_1992_26.iso/spool/sci/econ/8506

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From: [e-mail] (Ward Larkin)
Subject: NAFTA:  a critical analysis ( 4 of 4 )
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      U.S. LABOUR AND NORTH AMERICAN ECONOMIC INTEGRATION:
                 TOWARD A CONSTRUCTIVE CRITIQUE

                    Stephen Fielding Diamond
              Email:  [e-mail]

Part 4 of 4


Economic Growth

A second leg on which labour's response must stand should be a
positive alternative strategy for economic growth and job
creation, on an international basis. Austerity, rationalization,
and retrenchment are the bywords of today's global economy. In
the process, millions are being denied productive work. Labour
should begin an internal and then public discussion about how the
global economy can be restructured in a progressive and positive
sum fashion. Dramatic debt reduction for the Third World, and a
shift of workers in the advanced economies out of unproductive
labour (such as military production), would be important starting
points to a fundamental reorganization of the economy.
     In a partial way, labour, environmental, and human rights
groups have raised some of these issues. In pointing to the
emergence of a "social charter" in the European Community and
suggesting that a similar effort be made in North America, these
groups aim to shape the process of economic and social progress
(Aguilar Zinser et al., 1990; Donahue, 1991). But the fundamental
goal of these arguments appears to date to have been to weigh
down the discussion in order to stop the agreement from going
forward--not to recognize the global and strategic context in
which the free trade debate has inevitably emerged. The social
charter perspective ignores the serious limitations to that
charter process in Europe itself, where a much larger agenda is
controlled by business interests (Dewetring, 1990; Schmitter &
Streeck, 1990). It appears as an addendum to the debate about
integration, rather than as a basis for arguing that social costs
are inherent in economic expansion and can only be dealt with by
an alternative strategic view of economic institutions.
     This type of defensive response is, to an extent, inherent
within trade unionism. It is indicative of the strength and
importance of trade unionism within a classical capitalist world.
But we no longer live, if we ever did, in an era of individual
business people who trust social and economic well-being to the
invisible hand of Adam Smith. Instead, we live in a world of
global markets made up of large and small constantly competing
corporations, backed by and sometimes competing with huge state
powers, locked in a battle to integrate dramatic new technologies
using huge populations of unorganized, often cheap, human labour.
These organizations are engaged in this battle largely over the
heads of the majority of the world's population--in boardrooms
and conferences closed to the everyday working (and-out-of-work)
population. Their managers and directors have difficulty
understanding why such a system cannot resolve the problems it
encounters. Their social perspective is narrowed by the very
competitive battle in which they are mired.
     The NAFTA negotiations now under way provide an opportunity
to alter this process. Critics of NAFTA, then, must be willing to
recognize that economic integration is natural in human affairs.
If the process is regulated, consciously and openly, through
democratic institutions, it can be shaped in a progressive
direction with benefits to all three societies. In a number of
discussions with Canadian and U.S. labour and business groups,
Mexico's Cuauhtmoc C rdenas (1991, p. ? ) has begun to raise
this perspective. His arguments go beyond labour rights and
social standards to the very nature of economic progress itself.
     "We cannot be satisfied with the kind of future that would
emerge from a simple economic liberalization," he argues. "This
would only extrapolate present trends and exacerbate present
vices. Economic liberalization is not our objective, it is one of
our tools. Development, social justice and a clean environment
are our objectives. We are in favour of a broad Continental Trade
and Development Pact that primarily includes free trade between
Mexico, the United States and Canada and that is, at the same
time, in the interest of Mexico's development and not at the
expense of U.S. or Canadian welfare standards." If U.S. labour
begins to engage in this kind of debate, the establishment of a
multinational trading area could represent an opportunity for
labour to strengthen its place in social and economic affairs and
emerge with a new paradigm based on the democratic and socially
just development of the world economy.


                          REFERENCES

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Aguilar Zinser, A. (1990, October 5). Open to Business, Si; to
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            , et al. (1990, November 28). Letter to Gonzalo
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California AFL-CIO. (1988, November 18). Maquiladora dialogue
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C rdenas, C. (1991, February 8). The continental development and
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Casta$eda, J. (1990, July 22). Mexico's human-rights image takes
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--
-- Ward Larkin
   [e-mail]