corporation – The Social Critic

New Year’s Day 2015 marked the 20th anniversary of NAFTA’s implementation. The North American Free Trade Agreement became infamous when independent presidential candidate Ross Perot remarked in 1992 that the passage of NAFTA would create a “giant sucking sound” of American jobs lost to Canada and Mexico. NAFTA, however, is hardly in history’s rear-view mirror. It has been augmented all these years by more of the same, and now the Obama administration is about to enact the biggest so-called free trade agreement yet. The Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership represents the most far-reaching agreement in a generation, yet has only recently begun to garner widespread attention.

In spite of over a decade’s worth of negotiations mainstream media has left the Trans-Pacific Trade Agreement largely untouched — in part because negotiations have not been open to the public. Few of our elected representatives have been clued in either, however. Why? Because the TPP flies in the face of the self-determination principles this country was founded upon. It takes the economic aspects of governance of the people, by the people and for the people and hands it over to international authorities on all manner of issue pertinent to our health, welfare and safety — from finance to food. Because the trade agreement has spawned opposition from all sides of the political spectrum, the TPP has been negotiated behind closed doors. Only in these latter stages are the provisions supposed to undergo open debate. The problem? President Obama wants to “fast track” the TPP so that little congressional debate is possible.

Media Matters has this to say:

Congress Is Currently Debating A Bill That Would Grant The President Expedited Trade Promotion Authority (TPA).
According to a January 30 Reuters article, President Obama is at odds with Democratic and Republican lawmakers in both houses of Congress concerning reauthorizing a procedure called the “trade promotion authority” (TPA). The TPA is a formal legal authority granted to the president by Congress, which allows the White House to fast-track international treaty negotiations with foreign partners, bypassing most congressional review: A bill before the House and Senate would grant the White House power to submit free trade deals to Congress for an up-or-down vote without amendments, something that would give trading partners peace of mind but that raises hackles among some lawmakers.

Recall the financial crisis of 2007~2009? What you might not know is that Canada was among the least scathed by Great Recession fallout because, in part, unlike the U.S. Canadian lawmakers did not strip their financial regulatory laws off the books — that is to deregulate their financial system to the extent the U.S. and others did in the 1980s and ’90s. That could change if and when the TPP is finalized. The TPP sets the stage for international banks, among other transnational corporations, to sue trade partners (nations) for lost revenue (damages) in the event of an attempt to influence their activities.

Remember the pet food scare of 2007 during which time cats and dogs succumbed to melamine contamination linked to Chinese manufacturers? Earlier this month, Petco and Petsmart announced a decision to remove all Chinese-manufactured pet treats from their shelves because of ongoing safety concerns. The TPP opens the door to a country whose revenues are threatened by such an action to sue for damages (lost revenue). This, in turn, may make it difficult for U.S. retailers such as Petsmart and Petco to “discriminate” against imports deemed harmful to their customers! Pet owners aren’t the only ones with cause for concern, however. Doctors without Borders have a bone to pick with the TPP, too. It could make the cost of prescription drugs — medications used to control HIV in the Third World, to cite an example — too costly to obtain.

The TPP, in conjunction with an even broader agreement known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), empowers transnational corporations to sue governments, leaked documents suggest, for attempts to reform markets in a manner perceived to limit not just actual (current) profits but future (unrealized) profits. For all those who have pushed for TORT reform out of concern that insurance premiums, health care costs and other consumer expenses have been driven unnecessarily high by the overly litigious, trade lawsuits waged by even deeper pockets at international tribunals may do far worse to consumer prices. Such agreements give transnational corporations incentive to protect their market dominance with an armada of lawyers, costs that taxpayers and consumers will ultimately foot. Whether it’s pet food, groceries or prescription drugs, notions of consumer independence will be swept out the back door with the fast-track passage of the TPP:

Both the TPP and TTIP will go well beyond the WTO in terms of coverage, addressing such matters as foreign direct investment policies, protection of intellectual property, trade in services, behaviour of state-owned enterprises, opening up of government procurement, and reducing the trade-impeding effects of different product standards. — Europe’s World

The TPP, and agreements like it, challenge the authority of legislators and voters, placing unelected international authorities into the driver’s seat. While this effort is certainly nothing new, what is new some 20 years post NAFTA is the social-media connected world in which we live — a level of digital interconnectedness that did not exist in the late 1980s and 1990s when presidents H.W. Bush and Clinton did their parts to pave the way for the World Trade Organization. The TPP erodes national sovereignty in the sense that we will become wedded, as it were, into a polygamous marriage consisting of the U.S., Canada and 10 pacific rim nations, which collectively account for ~40% of global economic activity (gross domestic product). The fact that the free trade agreements of recent years have put us at a $180B U.S. goods trade deficit — bushwhacked by trade partners a fraction of our size — matters little. We are at the stage where Congress would normally debate the provisions with the option to amend the more damaging elements. Instead, President Obama has petitioned members of Congress to bypass open debate by reviving a fast-track trade authority provision dating to the Nixon era.

At the face of it, the TPP sounds so antithetical to the notion of self-governance that it may be difficult to imagine how such an agreement could possibly come to pass — to get off the ground in the first place. But it’s not so outlandish in view of the Supreme Court decision, Citzens United, which affirms that corporations are “people” with a First Amendment right to speak out (monetarily) in support of politicians and political objectives without giving “rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption”. The Court’s 2010 decision opened the floodgates to unfettered corporate finance of political campaigns, spawning the so-called super-PACs. Because of the high cost of running for elected office, just about every politician from every party who has ever risen to the national level owes his/her success to corporate-backed donors and the lobbyists these larger-than-life “people” hire. So how does an agreement like the TPP come to fruition even as it puts taxpayers on the hook for trade lawsuits that threaten to obliterate the right to set our own internal health and safety standards?

Follow the money.

If there was ever a time to exercise your option as a citizen — to make your thoughts on the TPP fast-track proposal known to your elected representatives — that time is now.

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RESOURCES

Trans-Pacific Partnership: Fast Track to Job Losses | Huffington Post

Regional Scheme for the Pacific Rim | The New American

Fact-Checking Obama’s Top Trade Official: Ten Tall Tales on Trade | counterpunch

Exporting Financial Instability | The American Prospect

The Trans-Pacific Partnership: Warnings from NAFTA | Huffington Post

WTO Protesters Were Right | Seattle Times

President H.W. Bush, borrowing a phrase from an earlier era, popularized the term “New World Order” (NWO) in the early 1990s. But while the New World Order has legitimate roots, it has come to be associated with little more than paranoid conspiracy.

Given what we’ve witnessed in recent times, however, is it wise to continue to dismiss the notion out-of-hand?

The following metaphor, Friedmanesque but nevertheless useful in view of the controversial nature of this topic, paints a picture of what political and economic progress may look like as the 21st Century progresses — and why a NWO may not be as far-fetched as so many of us are inclined to believe.

Imagine a smattering of raindrops hitting the pavement. Each raindrop represents the relative isolation and sovereignty of each nation. As those raindrops increase in number — meaning more countries climb aboard the international trade bandwagon — they connect like dots.

With enough rain — overlapping treaties and trade agreements — pools of water form (commonwealths operating under a shared constitution and/or currency). This is a natural evolution of the free trade process.

The European Union is but one such trade and currency pool, and it is not at all out of the question that more are to come. In Asia, in fact, The Wall Street Journal reported October 12, 2009 that an “Asean Plus Six” proposal seeks to integrate the 10 member nations of the Association of Southeast Asian nations as well as Japan, China, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand.

Much like a succession of raindrops merging to form large swaths of water, boundaries between nations may become less distinct in the years to come. Such a progression inevitably begs the question: Is national sovereignty passé? And in even longer-range terms, will ethnic, language and cultural distinctions begin to dissolve too?

While far-sighted, these questions are just that: Legitimate questions.

When people say that the prospect for a North American Union is little more than a conspiracy, they are, in effect, saying that they know the future beyond a reasonable doubt. What this denies in the here-and-now is an appreciation for the reality that a World Federalist Movement (WFM) has been afoot for decades. The mainstream media may not give these long-ranging issues press time, but world federalist organizations do, in fact, exist in the United States, Canada and elsewhere in the developed world — and they run websites replete with historical timelines that anyone can verify for themselves.

Our Mission is to promote global governance to address inequality, violent conflict, mass atrocities, climate change and corruption
World Federalist Movement and Institute for Global Policy: https://www.wfm-igp.org/

This much we know of modern times: Peacetime economies are evolving toward tighter integration for the sake of shared prosperity. Debates over whether this is incidental or intentional detract from the point: The logical extension of removing conflicting trade laws and legal barriers may well be a set of conditions wherein borders are intact on maps, but members function more like states in a global confederation (interregionalism).

Some say we may even see this convergence culminate within our lifetimes.

In a speech then-president-elect Barack Obama gave in Berlin, he had this to say:

No doubt there will be differences in opinon. But the burdens of global citizenship continue to bind us together.
A change of leadership in Washington will not lift this burden.
In this new century Americans and Europeans alike will be required to do more, not less.
Partnership and cooperation between nations is not a choice. It is the only way. The one way to protect our common security and advance our common humanity.

President Obama’s message? This isn’t personal. This isn’t partisan. This “burden” is the future. And no, we do not have a choice.

President Obama, to be clear, is but one of several American presidents in recent years to share a globalized vision — hence his statement that a “change in Washington” will not deviate world leaders from a transnational progressive path:

SERIOUS QUESTIONS FOR SERIOUS TIMES

Does a shift toward increasingly large and impersonal centralized governance bode well for freedom to exclude oneself or one’s nation from a one-size-fits-all policy? Or will freedom to opt out be the one guarantee regional integration proponents — world federalists — can’t promise?
Is it in keeping with human history and human psychology to share a collective vision without breaking rank? How does world federalism propose to respond to “agitators” and civil unrest within its Utopian framework?
Does consolidation of legal and political powers represent a net gain or is it offset by the potential for corruption and abuse at the hands of a powerful few whose legislative reach has gone global?
At an economic level, can or will world federalism deliver on its promise of peace and prosperity for all world citizens? Or does it violate the all-eggs-in-one-basket principle: posing, instead, a dangerous level of economic and international codependency that will hold individuals and markets alike captive to the weakest link within the whole?

How do you feel about the path we are apparently headed down?

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