When I study the
proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade treaty being argued about these
days, what comes to mind is that classic song,” Clouds” - on my short list for greatest pop song of
the 20th century. “I’ve seen the world from both sides now, from win
and lose, but still somehow, it’s life’s illusions I recall; I really don’t
know life at all.” Proponents say the TPP perfectly enacts a containment strategy
toward China, assimilating it into the regulated trading world while concurrently
securing active trade arrangements with Japan and India, a keystone of the
Obama “pivot toward Asia”. Obama himself argues that any job loss to Pacific
trade partners will be minimal, since companies prone to move jobs elsewhere
have mainly done so already and that any newly lost jobs will mostly be offset
by increased exports. Latin countries included in the agreement, they argue,
will have little impact on American jobs, while Australia’s and New Zealand’s
impact will be positive. The supporters warn that a lack of Fast Track
Presidential authority could create a real international mess, and there’s a
lot of merit to that argument.
Populist opponents say
they’ve heard that song before, and they are not buying illusions any more.
Their big concern is all the secret negotiations with corporations going on that
could weaken health and safety standards, stall climate change regulation,
etc., and with provisions which could enable Foreign courts to force
arrangements detrimental to American workers without recourse to American law.
The
negotiators say, “Relax, trust us.” At
the extreme populists sound like traditional protectionists, but toward the
middle, they seem wise indeed. The cogency of arguments on both sides leave me
casting around for a “pope’s mule”, an outside-the-box argument that can serve
as a tipping factor one way or another.
My roving eyes alight
on the recent UK election results, where an anti-EU David Cameron won a surprisingly
large victory over his liberal opponents. My knowledgeable grandson attributes
it to the British equivalent of gerrymandering – ages ago, the Brits called gerrymandered
districts “rotten boroughs”, so they’ve been around awhile there – and says that
the popular vote was actually anti-Cameron. I haven’t checked the numbers to
verify that, but even if so, it just adds to the point that concerns me. That
point was that the Cameron margin was an awful lot like a sigh of defeat for
belief in the abilities of national governments to defend the lives of their
people in complex international terrain. The Brits seemed to be saying to
themselves, our representative government just can’t adequately support the
people with the amount of sovereign authority it’s given up. The British
gerrymandering argument just reinforces the belief in representative government’s
ineffectuality – as the effects of gerrymandering likewise emphasize in the
U.S.
That, to my mind, is an
essential issue with the TPP. The quest for Fast Track authority is an
admission of disbelief in the idea that open discussion of the issues in a
representative assembly can be effective. That implies either disbelief in the
efficacy of representative government in a global community, or belief that
revelation of treaty provisions will show them to be unfavorable to the
American people. I’m aware that lack of Fast Track authority could create a
total mess, and might well doom the TPP. But it is a significant infringement
on the principle of representative government and a signal that in a world as
complex as ours has become, democracy is no longer considered effective. Our
Congress hasn’t been helping its own case lately. The problem is, as Churchill
stated long ago, that all the alternatives to democracy are worse.
I’ve said many times
how international corporations and national governments are struggling for
global dominance, and that the corporations are winning. The world will not be
a better place for ordinary people if they do so. The British election was a
no-confidence vote for the belief that sovereign states can protect their
people in such an unregulated global environment. Greek threats to leave the EU
are a similar sign. Rejecting Fast Track authority would be another such
signal. Those signals need to be given. The international scene these days is
too wildly unregulated for the interests of individuals to be protected. International
corporations are not sovereign governments functioning for the betterment of
all the people, and it is time the corporations ceased trying to substitute
their interests for the interests of the people. If no sovereign authority is
in charge, then corporate interests are. Stronger international institutions
and treaties are needed, and the TPP might even be a step in that direction.
But we cannot know that based on the current secrecy of agreements. Confidence
can only be obtained though open discussions, not secret negotiations. The TPP
has much merit to it, and it is time for that to be publicly argued without
suspicions of secret reservations.
