>
[mbs] The threat to move a manufacturing plant is central to
the ability of Capital to suppress wage demands. That's
hardly zilch. When this threat entails moving plants to
other countries, it exposes business firms to a combined
nationalist/laborist attack. In effect, Capital runs
afoul of notions of patriotism it had previously used
to uphold its rule. Anyone who fails to take advantage
of this, for the sake of the working class, is being
foolish.
Clearly now the trade deficit does not mean
an absolute shortage of jobs, but a change in their
composition. The impact of this change on living
standards has been well documented, and it is not
zilch either.
===========
1)That is different from my point that the system of national accounting we
currently use misrepresents the flows of capital. It's the who and how that
now matters, not where. Consumers owe the money to Sony, BMW, Volvo[Ford];
not Japan, Germany, Sweden. It's firms that make the investments that
catalyzes states into the destructive bidding down of wages via labor
policies to attract investment. The focus should then be placed on "outing
and shaming" the firms that leverage their market power to put states' labor
policies into competitive play against one another; a process that
ineluctably favors the continued evolution of authoritarian/oligarchic
governance structures and governments.
2)Capital is now more than happy to use cosmopolitanism in place of
partiotism as a rhetorical complement to it's fictions of comparative
advantage. Labor should expose the ersatz cosmopolitanism of Capital and
put forward a viable alternative that plays on respect for workers dignity
and respect for ecosystem integrity as two necessary conditions for any
definition of cosmopolitanism worthy of the name.
>>>
Isn't the whole point of free
> trade to deconstruct political boundaries vis a vis the boundaries of
> firms/commodity chains [assuming tariffs are taxes]?
[mbs] No, the whole point is to screw workers by securing
absolute rights for Capital.
====
Mere rhetorical difference...
>>>
And wouldn't that
> whole accounting convention be rendered meaningless if and when
free trade
> becomes triumphant?
]mbs] Yes if we lose, then we would have lost.
> It seems the question for the left is no longer [if it ever was]
> where, but
> rather our far more important and older question of HOW is it made;
> property/firm structure and ecological conditions of production take
> precedence over Westphalian geographies. Ian
[mbs] It will always be where, as long as people have
some identification with nations. They always will
because nations serve irreplaceable functions, both
good and bad. You're skipping ahead to the fourth
millennium.
mbs
======
Which is where young people in a hurry want to be; they see Capital as
ditching liberalism/nationalism and they/we-me want to do it too and beat
Capital at its own game. Nationalism is no more immortal than
feudalism....What could be more cosmopolitan than "Workers of the World
Unite!"
Duck Dodgers in the 24th and a 1/2 century
