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| Notes
on the NAFTA: The Masters of Mankind - Part 4 | by
Prof. German Estrada
November 19, 2001. | Some
years ago, Noam Chomsky wrote a long article on the "benefits" that
the Gatt and Nafta Treaties, would bring to the signatory Countries……….
Late in 2001, we're beginning to take a closer look on
such "benefits", coming to the realization that most of what he wrote
has become a reality…. Particular cases fill out
the picture. G.M. is planning to close almost two dozen plants in the United States
and Canada, but it has become the largest private employer in Mexico. It has also
opened a $690 million assembly plant in eastern Germany, where employees are willing
to "work longer hours than their pampered colleagues in western Germany,"
at 40 percent of the wage and with few benefits, as the Financial Times cheerily
explains. Capital can readily move; people cannot, or are not permitted to by
those who selectively applaud Adam Smith's doctrines, which crucially include
"free circulation of labor." The return of much of eastern Europe to
its traditional service role offers new opportunities for corporations to reduce
costs, thanks to "rising unemployment and pauperization of large sections
of the industrial working class" in the East as capitalist reforms proceed,
according to the Financial Times. The same factors provide
the masters with new weapons against the rabble at home. Europe must "hammer
away at high wages and corporate taxes, short working hours, labor immobility,
and luxurious social programs, Business Week warns. It must learn the lesson of
Britain, which finally "is doing something well," the Economist observes
approvingly, with "trade unions shackled by law and subdued," "unemployment
high" and the Maastricht social charter rejected so that employers are protected
"from over-regulation and under-flexibility of labor." American workers
must absorb the same lessons. The same factors provide
the masters with new weapons against the rabble at home. Europe must "hammer
away at high wages and corporate taxes, short working hours, labor immobility,
and luxurious social programs, Business Week warns. It must learn the lesson of
Britain, which finally "is doing something well," the Economist observes
approvingly, with "trade unions shackled by law and subdued," "unemployment
high" and the Maastricht social charter rejected so that employers are protected
"from over-regulation and under-flexibility of labor." American workers
must absorb the same lessons. The basic goals were lucidly
described by the C.E.O. of United Technologies, Harry Gray, quoted in a valuable
study of NAFTA by William McGaughey of the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition: "a
worldwide business environment that's unfettered by government interference"
(for example, "package and labeling requirements" and "inspection
procedures" to protect consumers). This is the predominant human value, to
which all else must be subordinated. Gray does not, of course, object to "government
interference" of the kind that allows his corporation, an offshoot of the
Pentagon system, to exist. Neoliberal rhetoric is to be selectively employed as
a weapon against the poor; the wealthy and powerful will continue to rely upon
state power. These processes will continue independently
of NAFTA. But, as explained by Eastman Kodak chairman Kay Whitmore, the treaty
may "lock in the opening of Mexico's economy so it can't go back to its protectionist
ways." It should enable Mexico "to solidify its remarkable economic
reforms," comments Michael Alto, director of Economic Studies at the Council
on Foreign Relations, referring to the "economic miracle" for the rich
that has devastated the poor majority. It may fend off the danger noted by a Latin
American Strategy Development Workshop at the Pentagon in September 1990, which
found current relations with the Mexican dictatorship to be "extraordinarily
positive," untroubled by stolen elections, death squads, endemic torture,
scandalous treatment of workers and peasants, and so on, but which saw one cloud
on the horizon: "a 'democracy opening in Mexico could test the special relationship
by bringing into office a government more interested in challenging the U.S. on
economic and nationalistic grounds." As always, the basic threat is functioning
democracy. The trade agreements override the rights of
workers, consumers, and the future generations who cannot "vote" in
the market on environmental issues. They help keep the public "in its place."
These are not necessary features of such agreements, but they are natural consequences
of the great successes of the past years in reducing democracy to empty forms,
so that the vile maxim of the masters can be pursued without undue interference.
Final Note from the author:
Reading all these
opinions and taking a look of the present reality of our system and what is happening
in this country, one has to accept that this guy wasn't too far from the truth.
The new government in Mexico is following neo-liberal practices closer to the
PRI of the last 20 years, that we wouldn't ever think possible. It seems that
the new people are not aware of the old saying "give us facts instead of
words"… They keep on "telling us" how great their policies
will be… once they are implemented…
We'll see in the not so distant
future, if this is only an impression that more and more people are having everyday,
or if things will take the right path for the benefit of everybody.
gestrada@pvnet.com.mx
Prof. Germán Estrada is the
author of the best selling book, "México
Mágico: Everything You Wanted To Know About... But Nobody Told
You..." available in Puerto Vallarta at The Net House, Mail Boxes, Etc.,
Books, Books as well as directly from the author by internet. Archives
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