Reply #18: The race to the bottom is inevitable?

[AntiLempa]

NAFTA and the other free trade agreements, if nothing else, accelerated the race to the bottom. Secure, good paying manufacturing jobs quickly left for Mexico after the signing of NAFTA. Coincidentally, many lawsuits against state and national laws were filed under NAFTA's notorious Chapter 11. Even more coincidentally was the fact that many of the lawyers who helped author NAFTA were filing these lawsuits.

Agreements, and I use that word loosely, such as NAFTA and the WTO don't help the workers or common folk, they help the corporations that helped write them and force them through. Those that worship the University of Chicago and Austrian Economics might think that high unemployment and the race to the bottom is a good thing (or should I say "competition"), but those of us that care about jobs, the environment, education, and other needs think otherwise.

NAFTA and the WTO can't be reworked. By nature they are investor protection agreements. When the world elite are serious about protecting the environment, jobs, and the rest of the planet, why not get serious and do it through the UN General Assembly? That way each country would have one vote and Multinational Corporations wouldn't be able to buy every vote.

The simple answer is that this would never happen and the reason is because the UN is democratic. Both the Chicago Economists and Austrian Economists realize that democratization of the Economy isn't in the best interest of those who currently hold the power. Of course they don't say that, but that is what they mean.