An addendum

The earlier entry really didn’t sit well with me after I posted it – it felt sloppy and even a little intellectually dirty – and sure enough, within moments University of Calgary PhD candidate Herb Simms took me (back) to school on, well, everything.

When the markets collapsed in the 30s governments responded with protectionism which made the situation far far worse. People also tend to forget the last 6+ years of a bull market made people a lot of money. Markets correct, that's life. While free trade is certainly no panacea for the current market situation, reactionary protectionism will certainly make it worse.

Also comparing banking deregulation-such as the revoking of the Glasman Stengal act done as Clinton left office-to opening up more markets is the worst kind of a red-herring. Apples and oranges.

The idea of a viral pandemic in capitalism is a position, not a fact. Many espousing such an idea don't like what they call capitalism when everyone is making money, they don't like it when people are losing money. They are simply antagonistic to what they see as an exploitive system. This is seems to be the far more ideological position; it never changes. However, so far the alternatives to people making their own investment and purchasing choices suck.

Free market, like democracy is an ideal never really actualized in reality and means many things to different people. So it is hard to take much of the hysterical criticism seriously.

I hadn’t meant to suggest protectionism was a solution – I only hold mercantilist positions ironically. That said, the idea I was working with – the vacuous notion of “fair trade” – reveals itself to be so nebulous it borders on meaninglessness after it's given 30 seconds of thought. Who knew! I guess this is what I get for trying to pass for a wishy-washy pseudo-leftist by critiquing APEC trade policy before my morning irish coffee.

And yes, upon further consideration equating financial deregulation with lowering trade barriers is blatantly disingenuous and I’m actually really embarrassed it happened. Open mouth, insert foot, etc. They’re not even close to the same thing; one pertains to the regulatory framework governing activity within one particular market the other relates to the actual creation of a market to regulate (or not, whatever floats your boat). It was low-hanging fruit and I took it, yuck.

Using ‘ideological’ in the vulgate sense that is being bandied about by CBC/CTV pundits is another mistake. It’s true that my personal perspective – I’d self-identify as a ‘critic’ of capitalism but in all honesty ‘antagonistic’ fits just as well – is ideological, but only inasmuch as anyone’s perspective on social phenomena is ideological. Neo-liberal thought is only a component element in the diverse branches of thought within the fundamental ideology of capitalism and everything associated with it. And obviously I’ve spent too much time in an ideological echo chamber – the only real way to gain any semblance of ‘objective truth’ about any situation is to have a dialogue and debate between conflicting ideological viewpoints.

In this sense, my issues with free trade and all related points of contention is less with Neo-liberalism vs. Protectionism in policy decisions and more with the fundamental underpinnings of capitalism and all that jazz. Which is probably worth an elucidation but that will be in another post I think, this is kind of long.

But your last point is probably the most spot on – it is hard to take hysterical criticism of anything seriously. I suppose then that I should take this opportunity to stop the hysterics and start thinking/writing more analytically and reasonably.

And I guess also stopping by the department to talk with Herb Simms more often, apparently!

Whatever doesn't kill you...

[hey this is a p. bad post but fortunately this might be a lot more readable!!]

As it turns out, Prime Minister Harper will be in Peru today promoting free trade at the APEC summit this weekend.

Quoth the raven,

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is expected to tout free trade as an antidote to the global economic crisis when he attends the 21-nation Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Peru this weekend.

Free and open markets are the best way to ensure the global economy rebounds quickly, according to Harper, who departs for Lima on Friday morning.

Of course! The best cure for a global crisis brought on by unregulated markets is to deregulate more markets, naturally.

It’s good to see the Conservatives are still as ideological as ever – I was beginning to worry they might respond to our economic stress in a way that made sense.

Fortunately Tom d’Aquino of the completely non-biased Canadian Council of Chief Executives is setting the record straight:

Tom d'Aquino, president of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, said APEC leaders must push hard to keep markets open.

"The worst thing in the world at a time of great difficulty would be if people would try to build up barriers and fortresses against direct foreign investment or the openness of international trade," d'Aquino said.

He’s right, the worst thing a small nation could do right now would be to take steps to maximise their right to economic self-determination and use what little control they have over their economic destiny to try and inoculate themselves against what is essentially a viral pandemic in neo-liberal capitalism.

You would think that if anyone gleaned anything from watching the evolution of the current financial quagmire, it would be that any advice coming from an organisation made up of CEOs should probably be immediately discarded.

Maybe instead someone should try listening to these guys for once.

"History has shown that crises on this scale lead to social and political instability with unpredictable and often tragic results. Working families have an enormous stake in the response to this crisis. Already, for more than two decades social cohesion has been under stress as a result of growing inequality in most countries. Today, those who are losing homes, jobs and pensions as a result of the financial crisis, for which they bear no responsibility, as taxpayers are being called on to bail-out those who are responsible. The G20 governments [they're not talking APEC in this context, but the same principles apply - ed.] must acknowledge the urgent need to begin work on a more inclusive, just and democratic system for the governance of global markets."

"Have" status is an illusion

[an op-ed I recently submitted to Memorial University's student paper, reprinted here because, hell, why not inject it into the blogosphere too?]

Friends, Newfoundland Labradorians, countrymen; lend me your ears.

I come with the Honourable Premier Williams today to bury the old, impoverished, “have-not” Newfoundland, not to appeal to it nostalgically and wring my hands in the air screaming “we have prosperity, but at what cost?” as you might expect to hear from our troglodytes and cultural reactionaries. No longer is Newfoundland and Labrador the poor cousin of Confederation; as Brian Peckford opportunistically prophesised so long ago, the sun now shines over Newfoundland and Labrador. Have-not is no more.

Nevermind that the Aboriginal peoples of Northern Labrador are so impoverished by centuries of political and social repression, and that even in the face of “generous” food subsidies the price of a box of Kraft Dinner is still so high that many people are now resorting to scavenging in landfills for scraps of food in order to avoid starvation in the year 2008; Danny Williams says we have achieved prosperity, and Danny Williams is an Honourable man.

Pay no attention to the dying gasps of rural Newfoundland and its rotting wharves, to the towns full of homes adorned with satellite dish gargoyles connected to one another by dilapidated roads, to the crowded midday taverns surrounded by Ford trucks freshly purchased with Albertan blood money for a funeral procession to mark the death of community. Danny Williams tell us things are different now, and Danny Williams is an Honourable man.

Ignore the devastated health care sector, so crippled by blatant mismanagement that nurses and doctors are leaving in droves while patients are left to linger and die within a bloated and Kafkaesque hospital bureaucracy. Ignore the Diaspora of young Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who take their skills, passions and talents on a reluctant exodus to the mainland in order to pay off the crushing debt they incurred at an institution originally established to freely educate the people of this province. Ignore the government’s refusal to negotiate with unions representing the chronically underfunded workers in this province, a refusal that springs from the same miserly instincts that coursed through the veins of the Water Street merchants who rode roughshod on the backs of the outports a century ago.

Ignore every last social grievance that permeates the lives of you and everyone you care about: Danny Williams stood before a crowded 500-dollar-a-plate gala, held a glass of champagne aloft and proclaimed that we can hold our heads high, because we are a have province.

And who will disagree with the optimism brought on by our new prosperity? Danny Williams is an Honourable man, and it is the work of this Honourable man that has brought us to where we are today:
A have province, full of have-nots.

Opening Salvo

Case in point, this is what happened the last time I got it into my head to be a smartass on the internet:

The other day while on my way to help the president of Fair Vote NL play a game of good cop/bad cop with Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dave Denine re: how much he knows about democracy, I ran into Simon Lono.

He advised me that I should start blogging.

Everything that follows is his fault.