Tying together recent threads on prescription drug policy and tradE, here I see PPI's Ed Gresser (PPI is the DLC think tank) making the case that our trade policy needs to change not to become more favorable to the interests of working class Americans, but to become more favorable to the interests of movie studio executives and pharmaceutical company shareholders.
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The Rational Corporate Contribution Recipient
15 Jun 2007 03:21 pm
Comments (10)
I think that you do the DLC a disservice when you suggest that it's not attentive to the working class. There will be lynchings for the working class, though I doubt the DLC will use PPI to suggest it. Maybe the Has Been column at Slate.
But how does HRC signal this? Maybe she uses Padilla for her Ricky Ray. He's Hispanic (boo illegal aliens), not competent (she's not touchy feely), Muslim (she's no Dhimicrat), and has been mistreated by the US Govt. (she's strong enough to ignore the law). I assume this would have to wait until after the primary, though.
Does Gresser even realize he's giving more ammo to those that claim that all the DLC is doing is selling out the American worker? Is a hallmark of the DLC that you have to be as stupid(or at least act like it) as Commander Guy?
I remember that at the height of the dot-com boom, Amazon and various other such companies were extremely rich, with gigantic market values and rapidly growing revenues.
This led all the conservative think-tankers to argue that these companies should all be exempted from the regular taxes all the other companies paid, on the grounds that they were very rich.
But after the Bubble burst, the dot-commers were no longer so rich. So the think-tankers decided that maybe they should have to pay regular taxes after all...
This hypocrisy is so common to barely be worthy of note: protectionism to benefit corporations is not only OK but praiseworthy, while protectionism to benefit ordinary workers is bad.
And make no mistake about it, this is protectionism. In a truly "free market", the cost of MS Windows would be equivalent to the price of a CD-R plus a couple of minutes' worth of labor. We have a system of government intervention to boost the price of this and other copyrighted works because it is considered (sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly) to be in the public interest. But let's not pretend any of this has anything to do with a hypothetical "free market."
Yeah, let's stick it to the greedy drug companies. Forget that they represent an industry that this country dominates and that they employ hundreds of thousands of well-paid, highly-skilled employees in America. Not to mention that whole deal about curing diseases and such. If we don't stick it to the drug companies, their shareholders might make money. Time for pharma shareholders to give back some of their ill-gotten gains over the last five years. Look how Pfizer shareholders have cleaned up. Merck shareholders too. Criminal!
Is it even possible that perhaps Ed Grasser thinks his position is right on the merits, and he doesn't care whether it's favorable to the interests of the working man or the studio execs of the lefthanded Lithuanian lesbians? Or is that a quaint notion, actually caring about the merits?
With economic policy, there's no such thing as objectively "right on the merits." You can't simply factor out the question of who benefits and who loses.
I'm sure Gresser does think his policy is right "on the merits" but as Josh says, the "merits" of economic policy involve the question of who benefits. We have a trade policy status quo in the USA. Many people think that policy should be shifted in a manner that's more favorable to the interests of working class Americans. Gresser thinks that policy should be shifted in a manner that's more favorable to intellectual property owners.
No doubt Gresser sincerely thinks it's important to shift our trade policy to be more helpful to IP owners than to low-skill workers. But it would be silly to avoid noting that this is what he's doing.
"No doubt Gresser sincerely thinks it's important to shift our trade policy to be more helpful to IP owners than to low-skill workers."
But, of course, helping American IP exports doesn't make trade policy any less favorable to American low-skill workers.
And helping American IP exports is indeed correct "on the merits". It helps the US trade balance with basically no ill-effects to America.
Looking from the American POV, it's really one of the most obvious and least objectionable ideas in all of trade policy. Those who object seem to be using the issue as a proxy for other IP issues that aren't really related.
Comments closed June 29, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
I think all we ordinary working people should all take a moment to apologize sincerely for so unfairly benefiting from the hard labors of the super-rich.
They give us Everything, and in return, we simply take, and take, and take from them, giving them Nothing.
I'm so ashamed.
If only I could cut my share of the national income to zero so that I could watch with stammering amazement as the super-efficient super-rich turn my share of national income into purely efficient gold.
Posted by El Cid | June 15, 2007 3:47 PM