Free Trade Isn’t about Trade. It’s About Bureaucrats—and Guns.

[newthinking]

Free Trade Isn’t about Trade. It’s About Bureaucrats—and Guns.

Free trade agreements like the TPP have provisions that are designed less for trade, and more about replacing public bureaucrats with private, corporate ones.



(Reuters/Larry Downing)

Free trade isn’t about trade. Free trade is about bureaucrats. And guns. Simple stories about how one country is good at making wine, and should trade with another country that is good at making cloth, explain very little about today’s trade agreements. Instead, agreements are about which bureaucrats make decisions about markets that operate between countries. Who has the power to settle international disputes between massive multinational corporations and the states they do business with? This issue, otherwise known as investor-state dispute settlement, is at the heart of the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) President Obama is seeking to sign with twelve Asia-Pacific region countries.

Investor-state dispute settlement is a method of private arbitration by which private companies operating in foreign countries can bring lawsuits if that country violates the terms of agreed-upon trade. It’s a core element of modern trade agreements. Senator Elizabeth Warren has warned about these agreements, and economist Joseph Stiglitz has argued that they “most seriously threaten democratic decision-making.” On the other hand, economists David Autor, David Dorn, and Gordon H. Hanson recently argued that “this mechanism would protect U.S. firms against predatory regulatory interventions by member governments. “

Let’s dig into an example. In 2011, Australia passed the Tobacco Plain Packaging Act 2011, designed “to discourage the use of tobacco products” by, among other things, requiring cigarette packages to have larger warnings, ugly colors, and no logos or advertisements. This act is clearly a “predatory intervention” against tobacco companies, designed explicitly to reduce their business in Australia by lowering smoking rates. As a result, Philip Morris Asia, a part of the American company Philip Morris International, is using an investor-state dispute settlement to stop enforcement and demand compensation, claiming this is a discriminatory “expropriation.” Instead of just the bureaucrats at the Australian government creating and administering rules for the selling of cigarettes, there’s an additional layer of international bureaucrats—positions created by trade agreements—who can overrule them.

Many people argue that this is corporate welfare, and it is. But it also goes deeper than that. This episode perfectly encapsulates the problem described by David Graeber in his new collection of essays, The Utopia of Rules. He argues that globalization now isn’t about technology leveling distances or speeding trade, but about piling private bureaucracies on top of public ones.

Continued:
http://www.thenation.com/article/202409/free-trade-isnt-about-trade-its-about-bureaucrats-and-guns

[TreasonousBastard]

1. It's more about evolution...

Everyone prefers to forget that until the 1930's the primary focus of government was to make money for oligarchs. Western expansion, the Monroe Doctrine, Manifest Destiny... It was all for the sake of industry. The "common people" were talked about, but given barely enough to shut them up. The full power of federal and local governments were used as strikebreakers.

Don't even think about earlier times of emperors...

So, we had a brief postwar period of happiness and joy where it looked like Utopia was on its way.

But it wasn't-- it didn't take long for the human race to return to its predatory nature and try to take us back to the 20's. Or earlier.

The point, then, isn't to fight industry, which, after all, does employ us and make a lot of stuff we like, but to direct it into more socially acceptable ways.

It's been done in the past and can be done again.

[newthinking]

2. I don't disagree. "corporation" is simply a legal definition.

Trouble is, how do we make that change when the power of corporations is far greater (more prevalent, people have more dependencies, interdependence) than it has been in history?