Seriously, Burn It To The Ground And Salt The Ashes

I’ve covered the free trade revolution from different angles for thirty years. I saw a preview of America’s future when the former Soviet countryside, once filled with busy (if inefficient and polluting) factories and farms, became a wasteland of stilled industry, with masses of extraneous ex-workers suddenly wandering cities with nothing to do. Crime and prostitution became growth industries, and political figures like the late General Alexander Lebed made populist runs at power by arguing Russia’s new inability to support itself — I remember a presser where the imposing ex-boxer held up a fist and croaked about the absurdity of Russia importing butter — was an urgent national security issue.

Even Russians soured on globalization faster than American voters, who bought sales pitches first from Republicans, then Democrats about free trade deals bringing better standards of living in the long run. As for lost manufacturing jobs, they were told not to worry: anyone “legitimately displaced” by new policies would be eligible for retraining.

It seemed obvious that NAFTA, the WTO, and the extension of cushy trade arrangements with China and other unfree labor zones were a gigantic end-run around American labor, safety, and environmental laws. It was an asset-stripping scheme, designed to help CEOs boost their share prices by cutting costs of American parts, labor, and regulatory compliance from their bottom lines. There seemed nothing complicated about this, except the marketing challenge. How could corporate management convince Americans, who fought for so long to scrape their way into the middle class, that it was in their interest to compete against countries that didn’t have to follow any of the same rules we did?