Can you be pro-Republican Economics and still be considered a Democrat?

[karynnj]

85. His argument is based on a bogus strawman

which is that Krugman agrees 100% with all the "free trade" deals - exactly as they were written.

In fact, I think Krugman is far closer to what Tasini proposes as an alternative. Not knowing when this was written, it ignores that since the Democrats took the Senate in 2007, they have refused to pass deals that do not contain provisions for workers' rights and environmental requirements.

One problem I have had with most politicians speaking against ALL the trade agreements is that seem to think that the problems of jobs going overseas happens because of the agreements - and wouldn't happen otherwise. In fact, the shift started well before any trade deals - and the real cause is the globalization of the labor market. Consider what happens to the balance of power between companies and workers (and unions where they exist) when the labor alternatives are not geographically limited. This is a fundamental change - likely as significant as either the industrial revolution, which created an imbalance where the companies were all powerful and individual workers powerless, or the birth of unions, which were able to collectively give some power to the workers. Globalization of the labor force destroys that balance.

Companies in a globalized world often really do not have the choice to both survive and have their products made in the US. Even without a trade deal, companies are faced with the decision of which people to hire to make their products or provide service. At first this affected mostly manufacturers. Imagine that you were the CEO of a dress company and all your competitors had low production costs by having their dresses made in large, modern factories in countries like those in Central America or Sri Lanka. Even the companies that require their sources to comply with fair trade working practices are able to produce dresses far less costly than if they were manufactured in the US. Look at the labels of dresses and you will find that even upscale dresses are not made in the US.

So, what forces are there to restore balance. There is reason to believe that the activists who pushed consumers to avoid companies that did NOT require these standards have helped to raise the working conditions in the factories they used. Other than the power of the consumer to demand standards, the only other force I can think of that could do this is trade treaties with the developed world.