So, what did happen in 2016?

[Jacob]

But anyway I thought we had a good discussion going on beside that.

I'll be happy to join in once I figure out what we're talking about

[Valmy]

But anyway I thought we had a good discussion going on beside that.

I'll be happy to join in once I figure out what we're talking about

Globalization and free trade. We were discussing it.

However, there are negative effects as well - especially combined with recent technological advancement that renders numerous jobs redundant. On the right we are seeing a populist response drawing on nationalism and scapegoating others combined with championing reactionary social policies. And it's working pretty well. In Europe, we've seen a left populist responses take shape in the form of Podemos and Syriza, but I have a hard time placing the substance of their proposed remedy.

Well I think that would happen anyway. The job loss stuff. And yeah Populists are best at channeling anger but don't have many substantive remedies. If they did they would not be Populists but rather some kind of Ideologue.

In terms of a left response it seems there's a fair bit of academic response to the current situation - calling attention to the negative effects of income disparity (correctly I think), and I think the notions of a guaranteed basic income and similar are left of centre. But I haven't seen any of that translated into populist movements with easily understood prescriptions on how to fix the problem.

Well there are plenty of countries who might be open to that, the guaranteed basic income thing. The Bernie Sanders people want to basically shoot anybody (well not really but basically make it economically impossible) who outsources jobs, that is far scarier to me.

MIM's contention that the currently disintegrating status quo is a leftist state doesn't ring true to me at all (though it makes sense from the perspective of right leaning radicals wanting to dismantle it). However, even if it is true I'd still expect a challenge to the status quo further from the left as the disintegration takes place.

Well I think it just happened in this last election.

[dps]

But it has that effect. That is just a fact, not propaganda.

Sure. Adam Smith, the Wealth of Nations, free trade is mutually beneficial et. al. I thought that was one of the cornerstones of right wing parties in the West. Since Tony Blair's third way, the left wing has adopted that as well, of course.

I'd say that free markets within a given country has been one of the cornerstones of conservatives in the modern West (or at least in the US).  I'm not so sure that conservatives consistently apply the same principle to international trade.  In fact, I'm quite certain that some (such as myself) do, some don't.

That it is also beneficial to big capital is a fact too, and not propaganda, I'd think?

It is why I support them. I believe in the long run reducing poverty worldwide and tying our economies to each other will make the world more stable and peaceful. And I think it indeed has done so over the past twenty years.

That this is a mainstream view in the US is honestly news to me.

I'm surprised that you find this news to you.  While I'll certainly acknowledge that Languish is not representative of the US electorate as a whole, almost all the US posters here are in favor of free trade, at least among those who I can recall expressing an opinion.  And that's across the political spectrum.  And up until Donald Trump, every US President of my adult life has been pro free trade.  Seems pretty mainstream to me.

I am glad that evil corporate greed can be put to such an awesome purpose. It just seems stupid to be opposed to it because corporations want to make money. They are going to do that regardless. The whole point of policy to make sure them trying to do this has as many positive impacts as possible. Right? I mean unless you intend to nationalize everything in a communist utopia but I did not think you were that sort of leftist.

I'm not opposing it because corporations make money 

My perspective is that freer trade (both for international trade and in terms of privatizing public companies and moving towards deregulating business environments) is a right of centre idea that has been adopted by the left of centre as well (roughly since Tony Blair's "third way" of the Labour Party, though I'm not claiming he's the originator). This has been to the benefit to capital and has had broad economic benefits for nations and people as well (which is the reason the left has abandoned more socialist notions to embrace it, since the benefits are hard to deny).

Historically, in the US at least, attitudes toward free trade have shifted back and forth as to whether the main support for if comes from the left or the right.  For the first half of the 20th century, liberals in the US were much more likely to support free trade than conservatives.  I would say that it's probably been more popular with conservatives than with liberals in recent years, but there has been broad support for the idea on both sides.

However, there are negative effects as well - especially combined with recent technological advancement that renders numerous jobs redundant. On the right we are seeing a populist response drawing on nationalism and scapegoating others combined with championing reactionary social policies. And it's working pretty well. In Europe, we've seen a left populist responses take shape in the form of Podemos and Syriza, but I have a hard time placing the substance of their proposed remedy.

In terms of a left response it seems there's a fair bit of academic response to the current situation - calling attention to the negative effects of income disparity (correctly I think), and I think the notions of a guaranteed basic income and similar are left of centre. But I haven't seen any of that translated into populist movements with easily understood prescriptions on how to fix the problem.

The most prominent person in the US to call for a guaranteed income (in the form of a negative income tax) was Milton Friedman, hardly someone to the left of center.

MIM's contention that the currently disintegrating status quo is a leftist state doesn't ring true to me at all (though it makes sense from the perspective of right leaning radicals wanting to dismantle it). However, even if it is true I'd still expect a challenge to the status quo further from the left as the disintegration takes place.

I'm not sure that MiM was talking solely or even primarily about free trade in his post.

[grumbler]

Do you really believe that they are NOT about attempting to alleviate poverty, and other desirable social and economic outcomes outside of the desire of corporations to make profits?

This seems to me to be a strawman.  There are more choices that
(a) "they are NOT about attempting to alleviate poverty, and other desirable social and economic outcomes outside of the desire of corporations to make profits" and
(b) "they ARE about attempting to alleviate poverty, and other desirable social and economic outcomes outside of the desire of corporations to make profits"

There are economic benefits to the US consumer and investor that accrue from the free trade deals the US has negotiated and signed, and that's why they were negotiated and that's why they were ratified.  Nowhere in the ratification debate did I see the argument that the US should sign free trade agreements for the purpose of alleviating poverty.  People noted that these deals would have that side-benefit, but no one would expect a Senator to vote against his constituents' interests in order to alleviate poverty in Mexico.

That is a rather cynical viewpoint, that I suspect you don't really hold. If one really did believe that ALL of these kinds of agreements are *always* completely about nothing more than profit motive, and any nod towards other motives is illusory, then you pretty much have to just give up on any attempt to improve human societies at all, since all such attempts are doomed to being perverted as a matter of definition.

Nothing is "'always' completely about" any given thing, and Jacob certainly isn't arguing that anything is.

[Berkut]

I don't think we are disagreeing, but I certainly had the feeling from Jacob that in his view, these kinds of trade deals were pretty much only about making comanies more money.

I think a Senator's constituent interests, for example, include concerns about working conditions in other countries, in that there are some of their constituents who do in fact care about such things, and the cultural discussion around things like working conditions certainly influence (and should influence) these kinds of trade deals. That is what I mean - these deals are not made solely based on business interests, because politicians do not, exclusively represent business interests.

At least, they are not supposed to do...

[grumbler]

I don't think we are disagreeing, but I certainly had the feeling from Jacob that in his view, these kinds of trade deals were pretty much only about making comanies more money.

I think a Senator's constituent interests, for example, include concerns about working conditions in other countries, in that there are some of their constituents who do in fact care about such things, and the cultural discussion around things like working conditions certainly influence (and should influence) these kinds of trade deals. That is what I mean - these deals are not made solely based on business interests, because politicians do not, exclusively represent business interests.

At least, they are not supposed to do...

I cannot think of a single trade deal that was turned down because the working conditions in other countries were bad.  There have been red herring arguments against free trade pacts that invoked the horror of people having to work under substandard conditions rather than being allowed to starve to death in perfect freedom, but I don't think those arguments carried any weight and they were seen for what they were.

The US has signed some trade deals that express the hope that working conditions will improve in partner countries, but there hasn't been a significant binding measure that i am aware of.

The tradeoff between employment and inflation is the primary basis for discussion, IMO:  does the constituents' benefit from the lower inflation caused by trade outweigh the costs of losing those jobs from the US?

Businesses like the lower prices caused by trade because it improves sales and profitability.  Consumers like them because that raises their standard of living.  Workers don't like them because increased trade generally costs the wealthier country more jobs than it creates.

It's not ALL about business interests, but it is about business interests.

[The Minsky Moment]

The recent trend had been to add labor standards to trade deals.  The earlier model - as with NAFTA - was to require signatories to abide by their own respective labor laws, but not impose additional standards.  In some more recent deals, there have been efforts to define objective outside standards (ILO has no surprisingly pushed for this).  The TPP had provisions that while somewhat vague in parts, incorporated labor principles.

[DGuller]

The most prominent person in the US to call for a guaranteed income (in the form of a negative income tax) was Milton Friedman, hardly someone to the left of center.

Guaranteed income (or basic income) is a very different beast from negative income tax, the incentives to the behaviors are not at all the same.

[The Minsky Moment]

Assume a negative income tax scheme with a flat rate of tax (positive and negative) of 40% and an $30,000 exemption amount. 

Compare that to a scheme where there is a $12,000 income grant, but all additional income above 0 is taxed at 40%.

Seems to me those give identical results for the same amount of earned income.   So how would incentives differ?

[DGuller]

Assume a negative income tax scheme with a flat rate of tax (positive and negative) of 40% and an $30,000 exemption amount. 

Compare that to a scheme where there is a $12,000 income grant, but all additional income above 0 is taxed at 40%.

Seems to me those give identical results for the same amount of earned income.   So how would incentives differ?

I may have confused negative income tax with EITC.  If the negative income tax pays you the maximum when you earn zero, then it probably won't be much different (or any different, too lazy to do the math).

[Admiral Yi]

I believe that what Friedman said is that a negative income tax would be preferable to existing welfare programs, because it would not entail the same distorting effects.  That's not *exactly* the same as "calling for it."

[crazy canuck]

I am strongly under the impression that nations signing on to free trade agreements are doing so because they think it's in their financial best interest, and that they primarily measure such financial best interest by the success of relevant corporations.

This, generally, has the benefit of of improving the standard of living of various populations as mor money flows into companies in various countries (with the caveat that much depends on how that money is distributed).

Where nations do give concessions it is not done out of some sort of altruism, but as part of concessions to get other benefits - generally commensurate with the amount of political power they bring to the negotiations.

The notion that countries - and apparently specifically the US - join free trade agreements in an attempt to help other nations through some sort of sacrifice on their part is pretty puzzling to me.

I man, I understand that Trumpists are convinced that free trade is just another example of the US giving stuff away to undeserving foreigners but I never thought the idea had purchase outside those circles.

I think your perception of the motivation for nations to enter into trade agreements is incorrect.  When Canada started down this path with the US free trade agreement the principle arguments for doing so were that it would raise the nations standard of living by reducing the cost of goods we bought from the US (by removing the tariff) and by increasing jobs in this county by increasing the amount of goods purchased by Americans because the cost of goods produced by Canadians would also be reduced (both because a lot of suppliers were already located in the US and the tarriff for the items sold into the US would be removed).  The practice has come close to matching the theory.  Sure the US goes throws a protectionist rant every once in a while and we are likely in for one of those phases over the next four years.  But by and large the deal has worked well for both countries.

[The Minsky Moment]

The US-Canada FTA is a rare example of a bilateral FTA whose motivations were really primarily economic and not geopolitical.  That may be impacting Jacob's view of bilateral FTAs more generally.  The Canada-US relationship: similar economies, similar language and  culture, same stage of development, very long (and practically unguardable) land border but over a century and half of peace - is not a common situation.

[Jacob]

I think your perception of the motivation for nations to enter into trade agreements is incorrect.  When Canada started down this path with the US free trade agreement the principle arguments for doing so were that it would raise the nations standard of living by reducing the cost of goods we bought from the US (by removing the tariff) and by increasing jobs in this county by increasing the amount of goods purchased by Americans because the cost of goods produced by Canadians would also be reduced (both because a lot of suppliers were already located in the US and the tarriff for the items sold into the US would be removed).  The practice has come close to matching the theory.  Sure the US goes throws a protectionist rant every once in a while and we are likely in for one of those phases over the next four years.  But by and large the deal has worked well for both countries.

I think what we have here is a typical example of the languish failure to communicate, because I agree with what you're saying.

In any case, I'm done with this subject the discussion which I entered into only to disagree with Valmy's assertion that free trade was primarily driven by rich countries being motivated to help poorer countries better themselves economically. It turns out that he was joking or he didn't really mean it or I misunderstood or I expressed myself unclearly.

So far I have not found any substantial disagreements with all the people who've posted to argue with me since apparently no one here subscribes to Valmy's (joking/ poorly worded/ misinterpreted) position, so I don't have much to add on the topic.

Now, whether large sections of the US public believes Valmy's (joking/ poorly worded/ misinterpreted) assertion is of some interest to me, but I don't have much to say on the topic. As for whether free trade is a right wing or left wing point of policy remains an unsettled, if perhaps useless, point of debate; in any case, I've said my piece there too.

[Valmy]

So far I have not found any substantial disagreements with all the people who've posted to argue with me since apparently no one here subscribes to Valmy's (joking/ poorly worded/ misinterpreted) position, so I don't have much to add on the topic.

That is why I support free trade. My post was a joke based on what you said in the post I was responding to, which I thought was also a bit of a joke on your part.