From Strength to Strength
Ireland later. For now, may I just point out that the movement for free markets continues to go from strength to strength? Yes, the CAFTA win was slim, and the horse-trading was ugly, and the bill could have been a lot more FT than it was; and, yes, the SEIU split from the AFL-CIO may mean, in the medium term, a stronger union movement in nontradeable sectors of the economy–but I can live with that, because it’s better to have strong unions in the nontradeable sector instead of the tradeable sector, as Germany knows full well. From this side of the Atlantic, it looks like Bush is having a good fortnight.
Update: My representative, John Hostettler (R, IN-08) voted against CAFTA. So did Bobby Jindal (R, LA-01), who should have been elected governor of Louisiana.
2 Responses to “From Strength to Strength”
I guess I’m inclined to eyeball the tradeoffs on CAFTA as having ultimately fallen the other way, as a net bad thing overall. In particular I hate that free trade agreements have to be so very saddled with side-agreements, and I was somewhat hoping that the defeat of this not-very-good-overall trade agreement would lead those who actually care about free trade to insist on less icky deals in the future.
As someone who supports free trade I hate seeing the kind of side deals and restrictions on trade that always accompany these deals. It allows those who are against free trade to argue against it as if it is really represented by the sort of protectionist measures that are invariably attached to these bills. It makes it extremely difficult for a genuine debate about the topic to be entered into.