TRADING THE JOBS
Searching the globe for the cheapest labor is an age old story. Throughout the ages, slaves were forced to work only for the benefit of their captors, serfs forced to work the land with no property of their own and indentured servants working only for their freedom. The democratic revolutions in the 1700's 1800's started a worker's right movement, beginning with the abolishment of slavery and tyranny from the kings. Finally the world ignited with a movement for workers rights and the middle class exploded into the world as we know it today. The United States has long been a haven for the common man, a land of the truly free, where with hard work and study, one could go as far up the social and financial ladder as one's own resources enabled. Now, with current movement of "globalization" and so called "free trade", we are returning to the commerce of the kings. No longer does hard work or advanced university degrees mean one has a career or even a job. By hunting the globe and treating Americans not as patriots in a nation of fellows, but as tradable commodities that can be disposed of as soon as a cheaper supply is available, America is quickly eroding to a feudal system of the lords and serfs. America, a nation that cannot perish from the earth, is being replaced by a multi-national corporate executive and investor class and the masses steeped in debt and poverty. Quickly our nation and any loyalty to it's workforce is being eroded and remedies denied as "protectionist" to "free trade".
This page is dedicated to showing how the United States trade agreements are not "free trade" and also challenges this mantra forever chanted by the corporate elite as being not only horrendous for Americans, but also a potential economic meltdown for the global economy itself.
Not only is treating Americans as tradable commodities that can be cast aside in favor of cheaper labor unpatriotic, this practice points to an erosion of America where dissolution is the final outcome. We must ask leaders of our nation the age old quote from Matthew 16:26, "for what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul"?
REQUIRED READING
| RACE TO THE BOTTOM Alan Tonelson's book, The Race to the Bottom: Why a Worldwide Worker Surplus and Uncontrolled Free Trade are Sinking American Living Standards has truly been a voice for statistical reality. This in depth study of globalization practices casts a foreboding shadow to the decimation of America's middle class. Many of Tonelson's essays on reprinted on the American Economic Alert Link |
UNSUSTAINABLE Unsustainable: How Economic Dogma is Destroying American Prosperity by Eamonn Fingleton , is a harsh look at globalization practices. Forever the cassandra of fiscal policy and "new economy" fallacy, Fingleton correctly predicted the collapse of the "dot com" era when few would heed his warning. |
| GLOBAL TRADE AND CONFLICTING NATIONAL INTERESTS Ralph E. Gomory, President of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and William J. Baumol is Director, C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics, show the difference between classical economics and today's complex and modern economies. This text also highlights scenarios where global trade isn't necessarily a "non zero sum game". An excellent primer on global trade theory. |
GLOBALIZATION'S MAJOR INCONSISTENCIES Herman Daly, a world leading economist, shows the emperor has no clothes in the economic cultist's free trade mantra. Professor Daly was a senior economist for the World Bank previously. This link lists just a few of his publications. |
| CITIZEN WORKS Whatever you think of Ralph Nader as a political candidate, one cannot argue with the exceptional consumer watchdog activities Mr. Nader has performed throughout the years. |
AFL-CIO An umbrella of unions, the AFL-CIO has done some great research and in depth articles on global trade policies and the effects on American workers. |
