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March
9, 2002
Bill Cook
Sharon's
Bulldozer
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Nightmare in Israel
March
8, 2002
John B.
Kelly
Michael
Moore and Me:
Disability Rights and
a Big Stupid White Guy
March
7, 2002
CounterPunch
Wire
Congressman
McInnis Equates Enviros to al-Qaeda
Mike Rogers
Will
the Battle of Shah-i-Kot Become the Taliban's Alamo
Walt Brasch
Patriot
Act and Free Speech
John Jonik
Insurance
Scams:
Who Are the Scofflaws?
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Bumper
Crop: The Politics
of Afghan Opium
March
6, 2002
CounterPunch
Wire
A
Beautiful Mind:
Another Dangerous Lie?
Tom Turnipseed
War
Is Wrong
David
Vest
Billy
Graham and Nixon:
Tangled Up in Tape
Patrick
Cockburn
The
Bombings That
Made Putin a Hero
CounterPunch
Wire
Berezovsky
Fingers Putin
in Bombings
Edward
Said
Thoughts
About America
March
5, 2002
CounterPunch
Wire
Ann
Coulter At It Again:
Race-Baiting Norm Mineta
Bill Christison
A
Former CIA Officer
Explains Why the War
on Terror Won't Work
Delkhasteh and Wright
What
Should We be Fighting For? An Open Letter
to Pro-War Academics
Mariya
Tsvekova
Putin's
Georgian Gambit
March
4, 2002
Ralph
Nader
Dick
Cheney: A Dinosaur
in the Age of Mammals
Uri Avnery
How
Israel Will Torpedo
the Saudi Peace Plan
Southern
/ Kubrick
Stangelove
Scenario
for Shadow Govt. Bunker
David
Vest
Grammy's
of Constant Sorrow
March
3, 2002
Bernard
Weiner
War
on Terrorism for Dummies
Paul Cox
Boycott
Mel Gibson's
"We Were Soldiers"
Frederick
Hudson
Toward
a Nonviolent Africa:
Bill Sutherland's Quest
Eric Schaeffer
Dear
Christie Whitman:
Take This Job and Shove It
John Chuckman
Why
the Rest of Planet is Unnerved by America
March
2, 2002
Alexander
Cockburn
Sweat,
Sex, Feet and
the Working Class
March
1, 2002
Brendan
Sexton III
What's
Wrong With Black Hawk Down: an Actor Speaks Out
David
Krieger
Nuclear
Terrorism
and US Nuclear Policy
February
28, 2002
James
T. Phillips
Baghdad,
Spring 1992
Gideon
Samet
Sharon
Must Go
Rep. Ron
Paul
Before
We Bomb Iraq
M. Shahid
Alam
Samuel
Huntington:
Peddling Civilizational Wars
St. Clair
/ Cockburn
Rumble
from the Jungle:
Ecuadorian Farmers Fight
DynCorp's ChemWar
February
27, 2002
Eric Hobsbawm
The
Future of War and Peace
John Troyer
About
that WTC Memorial
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Wired
for Democracy
or Business?
Alexander
Cockburn
Daniel
Pearl: Should His
Editors Have Sent Him There?
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
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March
10, 2002
Max Steel In The
Hour of Chaos
How Protectionism Confuses the
Critical Anti-WTO Perspective
By Norman Madarasz
Seattle
1999: Students, artists, NGOs
and CSOs of different stripes, joined in common aspiration with
trade unions and marched together in the Coalition of the Century.
Their aim was to protest the World Trade Organization's blatantly
oligarchic decision-making structure. They also spoke out against
relocalization of labor. What seemed to be lacking on the agenda,
however, were ideas on how to promote and keep up industrial
development among the strong-end of poorer countries, where 'sustainable'
development had long passed the project stage. These 'developing'
lands were once prosperous economic powers whose tide had turned
during the years of globalization.
An important question remains from Seattle,
though. How can the present state of trade union representation
in the US (and Canada) ever merge with international progressive
interests? There's been a suspicious silence on the US Left about
the recent trade union demonstrations on Capitol Hill and the
subsequent decision made by President Bush to impose 8 to 30-percent
tariffs on foreign steel imports. The silence clamors cacophonously
outside of the NAFTA zone.
The concern from abroad is clearly coming
from industry. International steelworks quite obviously relies
on the US for most of its purchases. The automobile, energy,
and defense industries are giant customers for the sector. With
the US's new defense budget alone meant to take up nearly 40%
of the world's total arms production, there's simply nothing
surprising about the fact that the eyes of steel manufacturers
worldwide are focused on the US market.
This is where the buck seems to stop
for the anti-WTO movement. It's true that the WTO is run on all
but democratic principles. Its clients, i.e. those over whose
commercial conduct the body judges, are the politicians and large
business interests they serve. On the surface, there's very little
distinguishing the G8 clique from the rest of the (poorer) industrialized
world, especially as the commercial elite of the latter has shifted
its economic planning according to open market principles.
No one would be foolish enough on the
North-American Left to demonstrate in favor of more equitable
profit sharing with Russian or Argentine business oligarchs.
This is how a perceived wealth-for-corruption trade-off motivates
the possible temptation on the Left to support protectionist
measures at home. Susan George may be right to throw caustic
skepticism toward the remarks of the Brazilian trade minister
at Seattle. In view of the demonstrations, he is reported to
have called for holding the next WTO meeting on an island or
yacht. The commercial, industrial and political elite do tend
to party on the same boat.
But if it's that simple, then why are
foreign left-wing movement doubtful about the intentions and
prospects of the North-American Left, especially regarding protectionism?
Regardless of the Brazilian minister's
taste regarding which of the world's pleasure spots is most favorable
to doing business, the fact remains that without undertaking
clear steps to share the North's industrial and commercial power,
the anti-globalization movement can hardly make sound claims
for increased distribution of wealth worldwide. It's all very
nice to speak out in favor of environmental concerns in the Amazon.
And it is surely sensitive to address the plight of the underage
laborers employed by Nike and Adidas in China or Burma. To smash
this exploitation, however, does nothing in the short term, and
doubtfully on the long, to stimulate the economies of these countries.
Not that China needs stimulation with its 7.8% growth index for
2001: the highest in the world. But Latin American countries,
crushed by the interest on foreign debt, do.
Even were we willing to debate the virtues
of protectionism, the problem with the latest of the Bush Administration's
unilateral gambits lies in politics and welfare. Bush is looking
in two directions at once. The steel states, Ohio, West Virginia
and Pennsylvania voted overwhelming Republican in 2000, and Bush
has every intention for a replay in 2004. So imposing tariffs
on steel imports obviously smells of the most cynical Real Politik.
The worst lie is that this measure doesn't contribute in the
least to curbing the slow slide into disfunctionality of the
old-style and heavy-polluting steel mills.
Forty years ago, the five major American
steel firms were among a handful of companies shaping J.K. Galbraith's
"New Industrial State". Such was their power that the
economic stability ensuing from their planning garnered these
companies an aura of quasi-benevolence, and not only to Galbraith's
eyes. They were exemplary players regarding the respect of workers
in view of "legacy costs", i.e. old-age pension benefits
and health care, enshrined in gold after generations of unionized
struggle. After Bethlehem Steel filed for bankruptcy last fall,
carrying along with it the massive legacy obligations of another
era, it seemed like the sixties had dissipated in its smoke stacks.
As much as President Bush would like
to appear as guaranteeing "legacy costs" in this latest
move, the steelworks workers should not be fooled by the measures
taken. Bush is using a familiar tactic to bring relief to anxious
pressure when things aren't going well at home. In simple terms,
this is called scapegoating. If it weren't already a golden rule
to never trust any politician who first puts the blame, and puts
the blame heavily, on a foreign competitor, Bush's accusation
of foreign governments's "subsidizing" their own steel
industry clearly discredits any rationale his unilateral decision
may have had.
The fact is, as the EU, Australia and
Brazil will surely stress during their protest hearing at the
WTO, the pressure on US steelworks has less to do with foreign
competition that an internal industrial and commercial shift
due to industry deregulation and the strong dollar. The codename
for this in the business is "mini-mills". Mini-mill
technology allows faster production times and large-scale energy
savings when compared with conventional steel mills. The result
is improved profitability for the mill operator and a higher-quality
product for the customer. They are also more environmentally
friendly than the conventional or integrated mills that make
steel from iron ore in coal-fired furnaces.
Once the pillars of the economy, the
conventional mills form the sector that has recently brought
failure upon failure in profits and production alike. Cost advantage
for mini-mills reaches 25-percent over conventional ones. Marketshare
for mini-mills has grown from 10-percent in the seventies to
50-percent today. Conversely, the share of imports has increased
by only 10-percent overall during the same period. Such figures,
coming as they do from a neo-conservative think tank like the
Heritage Foundation that disagrees on principle with tariffs,
should make the President's decision even harder to understand_provided
it stands on something more than the lowest grade of cynicism.
In a Washington Post article dated March
6, furious lobbying was reported from the steel-consuming industries
against imposing tariffs. The result of the tariffs is not only
going to hurt importer firms and countries. Tariffs are meant
to allow price increases by domestic manufactures, surely meant
to affect prices of any steel-based products, cars being the
first among them. The President's misguided decision reaches
suspense levels as Max Steel spreads economic irresponsibility
over the whole NAFTA zone. Because the bitter twist to this story
is that more jobs will be lost over all than would be saved in
the steel industry.
A final, vastly underreported, mystery
remains. What's the responsibility of the lobbying stemming from
the minimill sector? There's been no respite to their continuing
chewing away of marketshare. Certainly they have no worries to
face with health care and pension benefits for their staff: most
of their qualified labor is hired on contract. So long as the
conventional mill based industry endures, mini-mills are forced
to compete on two fronts against the international crew and the
old-stock. Wouldn't it be interesting for the mini-mill industry
to oversee a faster demise of the conventional sector? The cost-efficiency
of mini-mills is certainly the product of automation and I.T.
But they would never have reached such efficiency were it not
for the virtues of market deregulation.
The mere fragility of the conventional
mill recovery may disqualify any feasible solutions not extending
many years into the future. Such market and industry patience,
faced with the quick gains of automation, are no longer favored
by Washington D.C. economic planners. Which is why if the steelworks
workers deserve anything, it's indemnity. But Bush's wealthy,
soon-to-be debtor government is only generous toward its friends
and interests in energy and defense.
Giving workers indemnity for outstanding
"legacy costs" is surely no way to run an economy on
the long term. Nor is giving handouts to companies who no longer
show prospects of recovery after having failed to keep up with
changing economic times. Strikingly, the first solution requires
no international multilateral organization, such as the WTO,
to supervise. On the other hand, the IMF has strict guidelines
against indemnities of any sort, particularly when a country
is compelled to ask for loans due to being weighed down by repaying
the interest on prior ones.
Nor does the WTO pay the attention it
should to the influence of lobby groups as they compel leaders
to push for clever and underhanded industry subsidies. Perhaps
debate on lobby groups at the WTO takes place behind closed doors_though
for such matters mere mortals are left to chew the cud outside
in the pastures. Which is another reason why the WTO must be
made more transparent.
Since Seattle, there's been an uncommon
alliance between trade unions and the G8 anti-globalization movement.
Their demands on G8 governments have been met with violence in
an attempt to smash calls for greater democratic participation
in the G8 economies by as broad a political spectrum as possible.
This is what inventive politics is all about. It's also what
frightens the hell out of the power brokers, a pertinent point
given the monopolistic ownership and control of the media and
press by which to skew or starve any opposing analyses.
Neither trade unions nor the anti-globalization
movement can afford, if they seek international credibility,
to call for tariffs. Tariffs imply one and only one thing: the
way the elite of a wealthy country keeps its wealth to the detriment
of others. This may sound like a great strategic move in football.
But as far as North American society is concerned, it is backward
economically, a catastrophe for the environment, while volatilizing
the world situation in such a way that no country can finally
be at ease when the strongest side only plays winning matches.
Trade wars are nothing new. In the imperial
past, the globalization of its day, the Portuguese and English
were at war against the Dutch more for trade reasons than strictly
colonialist ones. But separating the two doesn't really mean
much apart from how your enemy fares in the end: dead, or in
growing or dire poverty. Which is why there's no difference fundamentally
between a military intervention and a trade war. We're not seeing
bloody war these days on the trade front, at least as far as
licit material is concerned, simply due to the US's unmatched
military superiority. No one in France, and hopefully in the
US, would like to the see the Eiffel Tower bombed.
On the other hand, the situation is such
today that the G8 countries, and first among them Canada and
the US, must come to terms with some basic economic realities.
Despite what lobby groups claim, the world's poverty has grown
exponentially through the years of so-called globalization. The
majority of the poor, when they're able to work, are being desperately
exploited in only but the purest of Marxist terms. Casting economic
punishment on countries whose economies are less stable than
the North's is a recipe for smashing the economic growth their
planners have engaged in precisely along the lines preached by
the US and their mouthpiece, the WTO. That the WTO is also a
means for the industries of the developing countries to have
access to wealthier markets and currency has its reason for being
after all. We in the North who are interested in seeing the tide
of the world's poverty ebb, and analyze both wealth and poverty
as functions of scarcity, have to convince our fellow citizens
to conceive of living frugally until a far greater proportion
of our southern neighbors are able to see regular, healthy meals
on their tables. Managing to convince is when ideas finally begin
flexing their own mettle.
Norman Madarasz
is a philosopher based in Rio de Janeiro and Montreal. He is
editor and translator of Alain Badiou's Manifesto for Philosophy,
published at SUNY Press in 1999. He can be reached at n_madarasz@hotmail.com
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