Common Humanity Stops at the Water's Edge

I didn't really notice this the first time around, but I feel like this sentence from Obama's speech hits a dissonant note: "This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit." So instead of worrying that people of a different ethnic group might take my job I'm supposed to worry that people of a different nationality might take my job?

I understand, of course, why Obama's beating the anti-outsourcing drums. But there's an appealing cosmopolitanism to both his discussion of our domestic racial problems and our foreign policy problems that's at odds with this kind of talk. Speaking of which, the Obama campaign seemed very excited that Hillary Clinton's First Lady schedule indicates she attended pro-NAFTA meetings so perhaps the great NAFTA debate, left for dead in Ohio, will be making a comeback.

Comments

The phrase "for nothing more than a profit" suggests that Obama either doesn't understand how the private sector works or is just pandering. I wonder if this will even be effective pandering though. Certainly American workers have noticed by now that companies with profits are more likely to hire them and expand their workforces than companies without profits. Hence, Toyota and Honda, with profitable North American operations, build factories in America and expand their workforces here; Ford and GM, which both lose money in America, don't.

Posted by Fred | March 20, 2008 9:33 AM

appealing cosmopolitanism

Appealing to you and me, maybe. Obama, however, is running for office in the United States.

Posted by Ryan | March 20, 2008 9:34 AM

Matt,

Don't be silly. Obama identified corporations as the problem, not people. This is a critique of unregulated capitalism. Also, since his entire schtick has been based on nationalism ("We are all in this together; there is not red American and no blue America, only the United States of America") this message of economic nationalism fits right in.

Posted by Cap and Gown | March 20, 2008 9:36 AM

Come on! Cape and Gown is completely right. Obama is criticizing corporate neglect/exploitation of human capital.

Posted by Brewster | March 20, 2008 9:40 AM

I thought that line was a little strange, too; IIRC there was a slight pause before the "than a profit" and I expected to hear something like "2 cents on the dollar" or something to the effect of moving jobs overseas in search of *tiny* profits. eh.

Posted by bs23 | March 20, 2008 9:42 AM

The phrase "for nothing more than a profit" suggests that Obama either doesn't understand how the private sector works or is just pandering.

Sigh. This is a pander. Why do corporations do anything at all? For profit, of course. I like Obama a lot, but sometimes it is helpful to remember that he is, in fact, still a politician.

Posted by Brad L | March 20, 2008 9:43 AM

I hope I'm wrong, but this post sounds to me like worrying how the deck chairs are arranged on the Titanic.

Posted by Jim W | March 20, 2008 9:51 AM

I was make Cap and Gown's point but he has made it much better than I could. This was in any case a primarily an 'I feel your pain' moment. So whichever way you slice it the pitch is consistent.

My how the neo-liberal con has been effective; it has taken infected even our sharpest pundits.

Of course Obama understands the profit motive and in the case of Toyota and Honda you can see it working. Note that those factories are set up here (OK there, but you know what I mean) so they benefit Americans--this is critical. A politician must ensure that the interests powerful corporations and those of the communities they effect aren't at cross-purposes, or at least they should be exercised in closing the gap as much as possible.

Posted by Chris Dornan | March 20, 2008 9:57 AM

This is a criticism of the corporations who shift the jobs overseas not the foreign workers who take the jobs. Nice try though, Matt.

Posted by Ron | March 20, 2008 10:03 AM

Actual workers and actual workers organizations in the US have laid the groundwork for a mild, class-based critique of our society's problems, and this is as far as Obama is willing to take it. The US labor movement signed on with American capital (as opposed to taking a more internationalist stance) at least since WWII, and since then the only workers organizations that have even tried to articulate a consistent stance of "an injury to one is an injury to all" that reaches beyond our borders have been the IWW (the Wobblies) and the ILWU (the West Coast longshore workers).

Maybe in time American workers will realize that we share more interests with workers in India or China than we do with bosses on Wall Street, but if Obama started making that argument in this campaign he might as well make it in Tocharian because no one's going to understand it in English anyway.

Posted by Pesto | March 20, 2008 10:04 AM

But there's an appealing cosmopolitanism to both his discussion of our domestic racial problems

Like a lot of other neoliberals, Matthew equates cosmopolitanism with corporatist globalization.

This isn't that odd - back in the middle Roman empire, when the notion of "cosmopolitanism" was formed (as a citizen of the world-city), it was a way of expressing one's allegiance to the Roman empire and marginalizing those who maintained an allegiance to their local customs and practices. It was a way of maintaining the imperial economy and social structure - Roman imperial governors, moving from abroad to run the affairs of conquered nations, were the ultimate cosmopolitans.

What's impressive about Obama's speech on race was precisely what Mark Schmitt outlined - its communitarianism. Obama talked not about breaking down all the differences that make up black and white and Mexican steelworker and nixed-race lesbian communities, but about finding opportunities for dialogue and coalition-building while drawing strength from precisely these kinds of communities.

The sort of extreme globalizing cosmopolitanism which Matthew praises and mistakenly equates with Obama's speech, would not understand Obama's decision to stand with his community and his pastor at this time. For Obama, those community connections are what enable political action and pragmatic coalition-building, and simply breaking them down for the purposes of asserting one's citizenship in the world-city, as the extreme globalizers and the Roman governors might have wanted, would be horribly destructive to any leftist politics that deserves the name.

Posted by DivGuy | March 20, 2008 10:06 AM

Good God, I think people are missing the point.

Remember that this was a speech about race and what it has done in this country. When he said "This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job" he wasn't talking about chineese people in china, he was talking about whites and blacks in this country. The whole premise of his speech was that we can't view it as a zero sum game where we worry about each other, when the real enemy is . . .that the corporation you work for [that} will ship [your job] overseas for nothing more than a profit."

Posted by Napoleon | March 20, 2008 10:10 AM

As a Harvard-educated paid pundit your job will most likely never be at risk to be sent offshore where the standard of living is so low you can pay people pennies on the dollar in wages, and the regulatory environment is so lax you can just throw workers away and replace them when they get ill or maimed on the job, but please show at least a little consideration for the blue-collar working man, regardless of race. The current economic war against the working and middle classes hurts everyone, black, white, or whatever. There are probably just as many blacks as whites working in the auto plants here in Michigan that are getting shuttered, more by the year.

Getting rid of the deplorable Bush Doctrine will do more for America's foreign policy than taking a stronger stance against outsourcing and globalization. America's government and America's corporations have an obligation to see to American people. Let foreign governments and corporations see to their own people (free from American intimidation and political meddling, of course). The Japanese (Toyota, Honda, et al) wouldn't be where they are today without a health dose of protectionism on the home islands. Many countries in continental Europe also make attempts to look after their own. America is probably one of the worst in the developed world persisting in its Darwinistic policies towards the working classes.

The real shame is that it is indeed pandering, and won't lead to any sort of concrete action towards closing the growing gap between the haves and the have-nots in this country.

Posted by STC | March 20, 2008 10:16 AM

And I must insist again - the presumption that free trade is good for workers around the world has very little empirical backing.

Since the signing of NAFTA, the social and economic position of Mexican workers has declined notably. Rural Mexican workers have seen the economy and society collapse, while urban Mexican workers have seen things stagnate, at best.

The presumption lying behind Matt's argument is that when free trade agreements ship jobs overseas, this is ipso facto good for foreign workers. But given that these free trade agreements never protect workers' rights, that's a deeply problematic assumption. Most of the empirical studies I've seen have cast significant doubt on whether these sorts of free trade agreements are good for workers.

Posted by DivGuy | March 20, 2008 10:17 AM

"Maybe in time American workers will realize that we share more interests with workers in India or China than we do with bosses on Wall Street..."

Most American unions don't even care about other American workers -- that's why union leaders so often make deals at the expense of the cohort of workers who haven't been hired yet (easy enough, since they don't get a vote) -- and you expect them to care about the Chinese and Indians? Leave that to Andy Stern, the most brilliant labor leader of our day, who -- when he's not gallivanting around China -- is happy to see unskilled immigration drop custodian wages from $8 per hour to $6 per hour, as long as he can unionize the immigrants and get wages back up to $6.50 per hour.

Posted by Fred | March 20, 2008 10:20 AM

What Ron said. It's hard to believe that such obtuseness is an error made in good faith rather than a deliberate misreading for the sake of grinding an axe.

Posted by tps12 | March 20, 2008 10:20 AM

Ugh, incoherent this morning.. try this.

"Getting rid of the deplorable Bush Doctrine will do more to help America's foreign policy than taking a stronger stance against outsourcing and globalization will hurt it.."

"The Japanese (Toyota, Honda, et al) wouldn't be where they are today without a healthy dose of protectionism.."

Posted by STC | March 20, 2008 10:21 AM

If the Democratic party's prevailing foreign policy becomes one of isolationism and protectionism it will only marginalize the party in the long run. Incidentally, I agree with others that Obama is mostly pandering when he talks with way and has no intention of fundamentally altering US foreign policy.

Posted by Tim K | March 20, 2008 10:21 AM

Matt's right. Obama's my preferred candidate right now -- but, he's the guy whose campaign played the "Hillary Clinton (D-Punjab)" card. Remember -- not only did he play to cheap xenophobia in opposing outsourceing but he also linked it to fundraising by Indian-Americans like they were some kind of fifth column. This ain't some nice happy post-racial America.

Posted by Sanjay | March 20, 2008 10:26 AM

Hey Tim K-

Arguments are generally more persuasive when they involve the use of "facts" to bolster one's "assertions."

You might want to look into that sometime.

Posted by James Gary | March 20, 2008 10:29 AM

I imagine he meant to insert a qualifier -- "short-term" or something like that -- and left it out. It reads like the sentence missed an edit as is -- one never decries profits, one decries profits that externalize costs, or that gain something immediately only to give away strategic advantage, etc.

Posted by david | March 20, 2008 10:31 AM

DivGuy is exactly right. And I'd add that the reason that "free trade" deals are bad for foreign workers is that the deals aren't fundamentally about the relations among nations -- they're about the relations between Labor and Capital. NAFTA isn't about how Mexicans and Americans and Canadians relate to one another -- it's about how Capital in the 3 countries relates to Labor in all 3, and the point is to make it impossible for Labor to exert power over Capital by agreeing ahead of time that any legal restrictions on the behavior of Capital will be struck down by the trade agreement.

And I'd also add that the problems caused by Capital-favoring agreements won't be solved by erecting a wall along the Rio Grande or by fiddling around with passports or work permits. The problems caused by favoring Capital can only be solved by restoring power to Labor.

Oh, and Fred -- have you ever actually been at the table when the boss proposes a two-tiered pay or benefits system in a contract? Do you actually know how actual, elected bargaining committee members react to that, or discuss it amongst themselves, or discuss it with their members? If you have, then you'll realize that everyone on both sides of the table knows that the point of tiers is to split the workers and weaken the union. It's as big a loss for the workers as agency shop is for the boss.

But maybe your vast experience in working with actual, organized workers is different. Perhaps you could share with us.

Posted by Pesto | March 20, 2008 10:32 AM

James:

Are you going to give reasons why you disagree with what I said or just complain about nothing?

Posted by Tim K | March 20, 2008 10:35 AM

So Democratic candidates are supposed to make Americans feel better about outsourcing?

Posted by El Cid | March 20, 2008 10:35 AM

By the way, every day I actually read or listen to reporting and coverage and perspectives from these 3rd world nations who are supposedly so gleeful about NAFTA-style trade agreements, and they aren't.

In contrast, we get snotty insinuations or outright pronouncements from people like Matt who show zero signs of paying even the slightest attention to debate around the world about trade & economic issues, suggesting or declaring that anyone who doesn't gleefully wax paradisaical about our current styles of trade & economic agreements somehow hate teh furriners.

Posted by El Cid | March 20, 2008 10:44 AM

Also, apropos of nothing, allow me to pompously and irrelevantly point out that if the Democratic party's prevailing technology policy becomes one of opposing electricity and the use of indoor wiring it will only marginalize the party in the long run.

Posted by El Cid | March 20, 2008 10:47 AM

"If you have, then you'll realize that everyone on both sides of the table knows that the point of tiers is to split the workers and weaken the union."

You are arguing that union leaders and union members vote for these deals because they want to weaken their union? It seems more plausible to me that they just want to make more money at the expense of future hires who can't vote yet.

Posted by Fred | March 20, 2008 10:50 AM

The most common criticism of Yglesias above seems to miss the mark. The fact that the line is written to increase a feeling of grievance towards corporations is not itself a plus, unless it is because there is something objectionable in what the corporations are doing. And to the degree that what they are doing is giving jobs to people in one country rather than another, it is not particularly evil. It is true that it is politically wise to play the nationalism card, but then sometimes it is politically wise to play the race card.

But criticisms like STC's get at the real problem with the post. Competing against people of other races and genders for good paying jobs is a rather different thing than having good paying jobs disappear in favor of subsistence jobs outside the reach of labor laws. While there are serious debates to be had on the virtues of free trade, it is simply a mistake to take the only difference between the two cases that Obama is contrasting here as being whether the person hired is in this country or a different one.

The criticisms from the right all seem to be premised on dropping the "nothing but" from "for nothing but a profit" and then accusing Obama of not realizing that corporations seek profits. But then I guess when Yglesias is making an attack from the right, the commentators on the right don't have to make serious arguments.

Posted by Lon | March 20, 2008 10:58 AM

Do folks really think it's productive to engage in this lengthy a critique of Obama's views on free trade based on a single sentence from a thirty-seven minute speech? Seems like a recipe for a pointless "straw man." Given the context in which the statement was made, a more reasonable read is that Obama is arguing that corporations/moneyed interests are the real threats to progress. You don't need to be against free trade to say that, just free trade that isn't in the best interests of the American people. Outsourcing strictly for corporate profit is not in the best interests of the American people. On its own, this certainly isn't the most nuanced argument Obama's ever made, but, then again, making a nuanced argument on free trade wasn't the point of this speech.

Posted by BJ | March 20, 2008 11:01 AM

So what's the problem, exactly? Call me a xenophobe but I thought one of the basic missions of a nation-state was to ensure the success of the society within its borders.

You can debate how far this should go, but for instance most people don't believe we should wreck our society while attempting to provide subsidized health care or retirement benefits to all comers.

Free trade is different: it's actually a win for us, but because it's apparently counter to basic human intuition, it's an elite idea that must (to some degree) be imposed by technocrats.

Posted by Steve C | March 20, 2008 11:03 AM

Race is unimportant, but people from other countries are not fully human.

Especially Canadians.

Posted by dumbfool | March 20, 2008 11:05 AM

That's true... we're part werewolf.

Posted by Tim K | March 20, 2008 11:12 AM

But there's an appealing cosmopolitanism to both his discussion of our domestic racial problems and our foreign policy problems that's at odds with this kind of talk.

Your argument begs the question, in both the formal and informal sense of the phrase. You assume so-called free-trade is a good thing for both nations that are trading (otherwise they wouldn't do it, right?).

But is it?

Does "free trade" really benefit, e.g., third world nations beyond the elite that specifically benefit from trade? Historically, pretty much every country that has industrialized/developed (including the USA) has developed behind a protectionist wall. Consider, historically, who wanted "free trade" -- the Southern Oligarchy which benefitted from the status quo of the US being relatively undeveloped. The industrialists wanted tarrifs until they were ready to compete on a global scale.

Anyway, if our so-called free trade schemes (GATT/WTO/etc) really are such a good idea that people would want to do them why don't "rational agents" support free trade policies? Perhaps so-called free trade is not such a good idea? Or perhaps people ain't so rational, which undermines the very foundations of the neo-liberal/neo-classical economics framework which is all that tells us so-called free trade is a good idea?

Really -- you assume that the so-called free trade regimes we've set up really are good deals for our trading partners (and for us) and then question why Obama strikes a false note: "instead of worrying that people of a different ethnic group might take my job I'm supposed to worry that people of a different nationality might take my job?"

But what if it's not such a fair-shake for those people of a different nationality anyway?

In the end, you assume too much when you raise the question you do.

Posted by DAS | March 20, 2008 11:22 AM

This is the only significant thing that I dislike about Obama. While the negative effect of trade on American workers is something that people argue about (it was very modest until recently, but there is some evidence that it has now become substantial), there can be no doubt that the effect on foreign workers in poor countries has been overwhelmingly positive. You can argue about how an American should trade off the welfare of an American against the welfare of a (much poorer) foreigner, but the foreigner's welfare should certainly count for something. In the anti-globalization rhetoric that Obama unfortunately dabbles in, foreigners seem to count for nothing or maybe even less than nothing. I sure hope he's just pandering.

Posted by David J. Balan | March 20, 2008 11:23 AM

Fred, workers agree to these deals for the same reason that bosses agree to agency shop or a wage scale or just cause for discipline or anything else they don't happen to like in a particular contract: because they don't have the power to stop it from happening.

Look at the recent UAW/Big 3 negotiations, which set up 2 simultaneous tiers for the workers: incumbents get a higher pay rate than new hires, and production-line workers get more pay than non-production workers. These two agreements eviscerate the heart of the UAW's original goals as a CIO union. But given the UAW's failure to organize so much of what is now the auto industry in the US -- from southern Toyota plants to little parts suppliers to the Big 3 -- what alternative did they have? The folks at the table likely believed that they'd lose a strike over these issues, so they took the deal.

It's not about "wanting to weaken the union" so much as it is about recognizing that the deal, any deal, represents the balance of power between the 2 parties. The balance of power has shifted massively since the days when the UAW got management to promise retiree health care, and one pay rate for everyone. Their recent deal acknowledges that reality. When a boss agrees to agency shop, it's because the balance of power has shifted enough to the workers that the deal makes sense at the time. When the workers agree to tiers, it's because the balance of power has shifted back to the boss. A strike or lockout happens when there's a big disagreement over where the balance of power lies.

Posted by Pesto | March 20, 2008 11:24 AM

Oh, I forgot.

It's probably unfair to suggest that people like Matt be aware of the debate that goes on around the world about how trade and economic policy should be structured.

After all, his investigative method is to declare that he takes what he believes to be Brad DeLong's view, and so that pretty much substitutes for thinking for yourself and making any clear arguments.

If you use any other method of thought, you obviously believe that we should all live in underground caves with no traded materials, emerging only to kill foreigners with torches and pitchforks.

So that's it, the two options:

Either you blindly accept stereotypical arguments about certain approaches to trade & economic policies as established, unchanging, and best for everyone in the Universe, or you hate everyone in the world and are opposed to the use of fire.

Posted by El Cid | March 20, 2008 11:28 AM

...there can be no doubt that the effect on foreign workers in poor countries has been overwhelmingly positive...

As a matter of fact, there can not only be doubt, those very same foreign workers frequently overwhelmingly oppose these agreements labeled "free trade".

But, again, presumably all those foreign workers should just shut up and accept that this is all good for them whether they like it or not, and let economists & pundits think for them.

Posted by El Cid | March 20, 2008 11:32 AM

Steve C said: "Free trade is different: it's actually a win for us"

Really? I personally don't think the evidence is there that it is for the median person in the US.

Posted by Napoleon | March 20, 2008 11:41 AM

The fact that the line is written to increase a feeling of grievance towards corporations is not itself a plus, unless it is because there is something objectionable in what the corporations are doing. And to the degree that what they are doing is giving jobs to people in one country rather than another, it is not particularly evil.

Most countries' corporations are markedly more identified with their country of origin than are American corporations. American corporations are more fluid and dynamic and have less loyalty to a particular locality than Japanese, Korean, or European firms. In the '90s we could point to this as a reason why the US economy was growing so fast while Japan was stagnant and European growth was slow. These days, the comparison looks less favorable for the US. There's an argument to be made that what happens when the corporate mission is taken to be the balance sheet, pure and simple, what you end up with is a gradual hollowing out of the society in which that corporation is based.

Intel is contributing lots of money to improve the Vietnamese education system to train the engineers it will need to staff its facilities here. In the US...well, Vietnamese engineers cost a lot less than American ones, so it makes more sense for them to invest their education dollars on Vietnamese engineers. In the long run, these calculations may actually start to move us towards a situation where American wages are coming down to meet Vietnamese ones. The neo-classical model, in which everyone pursuing their comparative advantage raises all boats, is nice; but it doesn't seem to match the historical picture of how wealthy countries actually became wealthy.

Posted by brooksfoe | March 20, 2008 11:44 AM

I remember an article in the Atlantic not long ago that said the theory of comparative advantage was the single worst-understood concept in political discource. This thread is evidence of that fact.

Posted by too many steves | March 20, 2008 12:22 PM

Just to be fully clear, Obama didn't know there was going to be a D-Punjab mailer, and when he saw it, he made the right apologies within a day and changed his campaign so that he saw what was getting mailed out in his name.

The argument Obama's making is not that all jobs need to stay in the U.S., but that there are certain jobs that could stay here but are being shipped overseas because of perverse tax incentives or because the U.S. loses its comparative advantage because it's not investing adequately in infrastructure or education. A key component of that is health costs, where more cars are now made in Ontario than Michigan (or Quebec) because health insurance for workers is a greater input per unit than steel. Who can get health care done? Obama, who strives for consensus, or Ms. My-way-or-the-highway, who manages to alienate swing voters and the working poor with her talk of clunky and unenforceable mandates.

Posted by David B. | March 20, 2008 12:50 PM

James:

Are you going to give reasons why you disagree with what I said or just complain about nothing?

Posted by Tim K

Uhh, Tim K generally the person making the assertion has the burden of backing up the assertion (i.e. warrants for the claim):

"If the Democratic party's prevailing foreign policy becomes one of isolationism and protectionism it will only marginalize the party in the long run. Incidentally, I agree with others that Obama is mostly pandering when he talks with way and has no intention of fundamentally altering US foreign policy."

To agree with you a person has to say to themselves, "you know what, he is right; democratic party will be marginalized because .... just because."

Posted by duffy | March 20, 2008 1:07 PM

I remember an article in the Atlantic not long ago that said the theory of comparative advantage was the single worst-understood concept in political discource. This thread is evidence of that fact.

I'd suggest that your post is evidence that there are a shocking number of people who think that an economic theory trumps actual economic effects, measured and experienced empirically.

Economic "theories" are not in any way equivalent to physical or chemical "theories".

Posted by DivGuy | March 20, 2008 1:10 PM

I remember an article in the Atlantic not long ago that said the theory of comparative advantage was the single worst-understood concept in political discource. This thread is evidence of that fact. - too many steves

How do you mean?

I would argue the free-traders who developed that theory actually miss the point (perhaps on purpose) of what it's really saying.

What the theory says (and correct me if I'm wrong) that a person/country/whatever will tie up less resources/money/time specializing in their comparative advantage and selling off their surplus in said production, even though they would now have to purchase the other stuff they can't make 'cause they're spending time making that which it's their advantage to make.

What the theory does not address is what happens to the freed resources/money/time. Does it concentrate in the hands a few people with the majority worse off, because the freed money doesn't reach them yet they no longer have time to produce those objects not to their country's comparitive advantage to produce? Is it equitably distributed?

Also, what happens if the economy changes and you're stuck producing some comparative advantage item that's no longer needed? Are you now at a disadvantage over countries that have no particular comparative advantage to begin with?

History has shown that countries with very specific comparative advantages actually get stuck if allowed/forced to specialize too much in them (e.g. countries getting stuck in agrarian economies). In fact, countries often do not want to specialize in their comparative advantage and it takes acts of force (c.f. the British Empire) and/or financial sabatage (British dumping to supress American industrialization after the War of 1812; the World Bank/IMF forcing countries to agree to "conditions" before letting them access international finance) to get them to do so.

There is a whole sordid history of how much force and/or coercion is needed to get countries to follow what is supposedly their "comparative advantage". And it really does discredit the theory as it applies to not-so-free-in-practice trade.

Posted by DAS | March 20, 2008 1:15 PM

Pesto,

The UAW has been unable to organize the Toyota and other similarly profitable auto plants because those workers aren't stupid: they know that the UAW's contracts with the big three automakers (yes, the management was stupid to agree to them) hobbled the domestic automakers and ultimately cost hundreds of thousands of jobs. Who would chose to repeat that disaster?

Certainly, in the case of the UAW, accepting a two-tiered system was a belated attempt to stop choking their golden geese, but that's not the only instance of a union accepting (or worsening) a two-tiered comp system. Consider the NYPD's union, which recently negotiated lowering the comp for new cops to about $25k (from about $29k if memory serves). They didn't do this because they were afraid the NYPD was going to go out of business; they did it because they wanted more money, and the easiest group to take that from was the one not at the table: cops who hadn't been hired yet, and thus had no vote.

Posted by Fred | March 20, 2008 1:19 PM

In the trade off between a foreign policy that respects the humanity of people of beyond the water’s edge by killing and torturing them less, and a trade rhetoric that says suggests they are less deserving to be hired by an American company, I think I’m comfortable with the compromise.

Also regarding the question of if he’s pandering, I haven’t seen anything that really suggests he doesn’t believe the anti-trade rhetoric he’s been espousing. As some of the comments have suggested he’s used rhetoric like this before.

Posted by Christopher Colaninno | March 20, 2008 1:33 PM

Fred,

Toyota workers haven't organized for lots of reasons, among them (a) the state of labor law in the US, which makes attacking workers and their organizations incredibly easy; (b) the ease with which Toyota can match UAW pay standards while waiting for exactly the kind of deal that just went down (now, Toyota et al can let standards slide for their workers without any fear). I'm sure UAW leadership had something to do with it, too, as well as Americans general hostility to class-based solidarity, which has lots and lots of causes and of which you seem to be a great example.

And the idea that GM, Ford and Chrysler are all offering a product line that's every bit as good as Toyota's and Honda's, but the big, fat, lazy, pampered UAW members are bleeding the poor companies dry and preventing them from competing is laughable.

Your account of the FOP or whoever in NY may well be accurate. There certainly are plenty of bozos in the labor movement, many in leadership positions. It's not out of the question that that particular local would do what you're describing. American labor stopped being ideological a long, long time ago, and once you abandon an ideological opposition to Capital, you're a lot more likely to make cynical deals.

On the other hand, it's also possible that what happened was what I was describing -- FOP, for whatever reason, is weak, the standards for newly-hired cops are falling everywhere, the NYPD scale was way above other comparable cities and management said, "We can't sustain this any more, and won't -- go ahead and fight us if you want." Since the cops can't go on strike, they'd have to refer any dispute to an arbitrator and if they think the arbitrator would agree with the boss, they might say, "We'll agree to this only if you give us a, b, and c for not going to the arbitrator -- and one thing is you can't cut pay for our senior members" or whatever.

Two other points:

1) Labor does fight on lots of fronts for tons of non-members: the AFL-CIO and CTW have put tons of effort into passing a raise in the minimum wage, and did the same with passing FMLA, trying to get repetitive stress OSHA standards, and other reforms. Since only about 10% of US workers are in unions, by definition 90% of the workers who benefit from these broad, legal reforms are not union members. Many of them, in fact, aren't even "employees" under the NLRA and will never be union members.

2) Many, many unions (and possibly UAW and FOP, I don't know about them specifically) base their dues on a percentage of each member's pay -- even in the most business-unionist, cynical, I-just-wanna-soak-my-members fantasy, there's no way in which degrading a bargaining unit's pay scale helps to line the union president's pockets.

3) I'm hardly the world's most experienced labor organizer. I don't even do it any more. But especially since you neglected to even reply to my question about your experience at the table and/or with workers, I think I can assume you have no experience in how unions actually work, or how bargaining committees behave. My experience isn't comprehensive, or absolutely definitive, nor is it free of my ideological views -- but it is experience. You, on the other hand, seem to be just speculating based purely on your ideology. And it shows.

Posted by Pesto | March 20, 2008 1:53 PM

You mean this article about competitive advantage?

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200710/free-trade

I think it bolsters my point.

Posted by STC | March 20, 2008 2:33 PM

Pesto,

"And the idea that GM, Ford and Chrysler are all offering a product line that's every bit as good as Toyota's and Honda's..."

It's hard to offer the same quality when you have labor costs that are so much higher. That means you have to skimp on materials (e.g., chintzy vinyl interiors) that lowers your quality.

"American labor stopped being ideological a long, long time ago, and once you abandon an ideological opposition to Capital"

"Opposition to Capital"? Are you serious? Most union members aren't that stupid: why would they be against a system that makes their high-paying jobs possible?

"Many, many unions (and possibly UAW and FOP, I don't know about them specifically) base their dues on a percentage of each member's pay -- even in the most business-unionist, cynical, I-just-wanna-soak-my-members fantasy, there's no way in which degrading a bargaining unit's pay scale helps to line the union president's pockets."

The two-tiered wage systems are a way to line union members pockets -- at the expense of future hires. That was my point. And that's why it's silly to expect American union members to care about workers in India when they often don't even care about the next generation of workers in America.

Union leaders do increase dues and union rolls at the expense of American workers when they organize and advocate for legal residency for illegal aliens.

"But especially since you neglected to even reply to my question about your experience at the table and/or with workers, I think I can assume you have no experience in how unions actually work, or how bargaining committees behave."

I never claimed to be a union organizer -- I didn't realize that was a prerequisite for offering an opinion here. But I do have some experience in how unions work, having once been a member of the UFCW. Also, the suggestion that one needed to have been at the table when the NYPD's union negotiated its last contract to realize that they dicked over the next cohort of new cops is ridiculous.

Posted by Fred | March 20, 2008 2:56 PM

Look, I'm a good liberal, living in New York, surrounded by a diverse peoples and blah blah blah. But---is it crazy to say that it's the job of the President of the United States to prioritize Americans jobs, health, and well-being over those of others? Not that he should be actively abusing others to pursue American interests (though that sure happens a lot of the time). But if you're saying "Why is Obama acting like he cares more about Americans working than Indians working?", the simple answer is "Because he's running for president of the US, not India."

Posted by That Fuzzy Bastard | March 20, 2008 5:04 PM

“What happens if a country has no comparative advantage in anything?” people would ask, gravely. How we laughed.

But it can happen.

If a country can do just about everything equally well, relative to other countries, it has no particular comparative advantages.

Posted by DAS | March 20, 2008 5:29 PM

"So instead of worrying that people of a different ethnic group might take my job I'm supposed to worry that people of a different nationality might take my job? "

Yes of course. The president is elected to represent the American people. Why is that hard to understand?

Posted by mad6798j | March 20, 2008 5:30 PM

re: comparative advantage.

STC,Your article, like most other treatments of Comparative Advantage, simply ignores issues/problems that are very real but do not neatly fall into the category of "economics".

Specifically, it completely ignores the obvious fact that trade can be, and inevitably occasionally will be, disrupted by phenomena from natural disaster to war and that the more dependent a nation is on trade the more vulnerable it is to disruptions in that trade (or anything that sharply raises the unavoidable costs of that trade).

A nation that imports all it's food is obviously vulnerable to many things including any aggressor who has the capacity to intercept the food shipments they depend on. Conversely, A nation that specializes in exporting food - much less a single food product - can easily be quickly devastated by a new blight or (perhaps more relevant) a change in climate.

On the human level it must be remembered that one cannot simply abandon an "industry", such as agriculture for example, and expect to be able to reconstitute it in the event an emergency hits.

I'll finish up with an analogy to evolutionary dynamics. The most "efficient" species are those which are most perfectly adapted to a particular environment. The more adapted a species is for one particular environment, the more vulnerable it is to being wiped out by even minor changes in that environment. In the right conditions they have high "fitness" but small changes in their environment can.

Comparative advantage increases the economic "fitness" of a nation, but Darwin was dead-on when he said "It is NOT the fittest of the species who survive but those most adaptable to change". To be truly robust a nation must balance the advantages of comparative advantage with the inevitable need to adapt to changing conditions - which can change exactly what they have a comparative advantage in - over time.

When pursuit of comparative advantage begins to seriously undermine the economic adaptability of a nation it becomes more of a burden and threat than a benefit.

Posted by libarbarian | March 20, 2008 6:00 PM

DAS,

You have misunderstood the theory of comparative advantage.

Even if the workers in a country are less efficient at every single type of production than those of its trading partners, they will still be made better off by trade.

It's completely counter to our intuition, but the theory really is that robust. The wikipedia entry is quite good.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage

Posted by heedless | March 20, 2008 11:43 PM

So wait a second. If the world economy be damned, why isn't the same said for world opinion?

Posted by Jack | March 21, 2008 7:35 AM