In "America's Forgotten Majority", Ruy Teixeira and Joel Rogers write that "from 1973 to 1998, in an economy that almost doubled in real terms, the wage of the typical worker in production and nonsupervisory jobs (80 percent of the workforce) actually declined by 6 percent, from $13.61 to $12.77 an hour." Trade may not have been the entire cause of the wage decline, but it is a highly visible factor. In Government Works, Professor Milton J. Esman of Cornell University writes: "The openness of American markets to foreign products, including those produced by US-owned firms in low-wage countries, has been a major disincentive to US firms to invest in improving the efficiency and productivity of home-based plants. It has been economically rational for them to abandon US facilities entirely. The loss of manufacturing jobs, in turn, has contributed to the decline in real wages for displaced workers; their replacement jobs in the services sector usually pay less than the manufacturing jobs they have lost." This cause and effect may be intuitively obvious, but to American working people the linkage seems to have eluded the leaders of their government. President Clinton has used his considerable charms to sell the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico and Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China by promising that free trade will mean more and better jobs for American workers. They have not believed him, and for the most part they have been right not to do so. Instead of personal prosperity, traditional working-class voters get condescending lectures about the virtues of free trade, often couched in language suggesting that anyone who doubts the benefits of globalization is a knuckle-dragging mouth-breather too dim to understand the works of David Ricardo. In postindustrial Washington, Clinton and his favorites (wearing blue jeans to seem folksy) dine not on nightingales but on barbecue at a Democratic National Committee dinner that raises $25.5 million, much of it in $500,000 contributions, for the party that supposedly represents the common man. Labor leaders boycotted the event to protest the Clinton administration's support for normal trade relations with China, and also threatened to withdraw support from Democratic congressional candidates. "This is a betrayal," George Becker, president of the United Steelworkers of America, said of the China vote. Stephen Yokich, president of the United Auto Workers, suggested his union would back Ralph Nader for the presidency rather than Vice President Al Gore. Clinton's faith in free trade may eventually prove correct; even now, the working class is just beginning to share in the economic gains of recent years. But in the short run, the Democrats, led by Gore (a far less persuasive salesman than Clinton), are seeking to retain the presidency and win back the House and Senate next November. Working people, their traditional base, do not appear to be especially enthusiastic, and the upper-middle-income suburbanites—"soccer moms"—their new infatuation, seem tempted by George W. Bush's "compassionate conservatism." Full review at: http://www.nybooks.com/ (Look for Lars-Erik Nelson in the archives) ==== "...Today, we have about 4 percent of the world's people. We enjoy about 22 percent of the world's income. It is pretty much elemental math that we can't continue to do that unless we sell something to the other 96 percent of the people that inhabit this increasingly interconnected planet of ours." President Clinton, Seattle, December 1, 1999 Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
