Open trade and open borders
Oct. 12th, 2016 05:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lotesseI'm trying to see if my understanding of the linkage of these two concepts as it currently stands in the US and the EU is accurate -- any corrections or further thoughts would be super welcome!
Earlier this year, the Brexit vote gave me the opportunity to learn a little more about the relationship between open borders and free trade in the EU. As I understand it, tying the two together is an attempt to fix the problem of globalization and empire identified by political and economic theorists in the 90s and early millennium: that imperial structures allowed the global West to financially drain the global South while trapping the people of the global South in the ruined economies they left behind. Granting free passage for people as well as money does not necessarily stop the drain, but it means that i.e. Pakistani people whose nation fueled the wealth of the British Empire are seen as having the right to follow their stolen money up to Britain, where they will be able to enjoy the benefits of the wealth that was removed there.
After the Brexit vote, I know there was some fussing in the UK over the fact that Brussels will not allow access to the common market without a commitment to open borders. My understanding is that this is how the connection of trade/immigration is meant to function, a carrot-and-stick bit that works to position cosmopolitanism and diversity as in the best interests of the financial class. This can feel unsatisfying to hard leftists, because it means bending the bankers into your allies instead of condemning them for pustulant bloodsuckers, but at least on a smaller scale I think I've seen the tactic work: in Mike Pence's Indiana, where it was the screaming of the Indianapolis business interests that got him to roll back that appalling bit of "religious freedom" anti-gay pro-discrimination legislation.
Am I right to think that the oft-quoted bit from HRC's Goldman Sachs speech, her dream of open trade and open borders, is expressing interest in the carrot-and-stick bend-the-bankers tactic I outlined above? Certainly, a lot of that speech reminds me of the maneuver I used to rely on when teaching intro to social justice topics at University: begin your appeal on the assumption that your listeners are ethical and engaged, and you can to some extent force them to live up to that idealized image of themselves -- or at least to sort of want to, which gives you a point for further leverage.
I read a comment recently that the US right and left are both re-evaluating their relationships to globalization, and I think that's accurate -- the Trump campaign is really pulling for isolationism, in contrast to the Republican vision during the Bush years, and more than a decade out from the frantic argumentation from the left against military interventionism in Iraq, it's once more possible to look back critically at the old anti-globalism arguments. As an older millennial voter, one of the things that is most striking to me about the old guard of anti-globalization leftists is their weird technophobia; witness this bizarre argument from Erik Loomis (who tbh I both enjoy and am frustrated by because he thinks so very like my own father).
Earlier this year, the Brexit vote gave me the opportunity to learn a little more about the relationship between open borders and free trade in the EU. As I understand it, tying the two together is an attempt to fix the problem of globalization and empire identified by political and economic theorists in the 90s and early millennium: that imperial structures allowed the global West to financially drain the global South while trapping the people of the global South in the ruined economies they left behind. Granting free passage for people as well as money does not necessarily stop the drain, but it means that i.e. Pakistani people whose nation fueled the wealth of the British Empire are seen as having the right to follow their stolen money up to Britain, where they will be able to enjoy the benefits of the wealth that was removed there.
After the Brexit vote, I know there was some fussing in the UK over the fact that Brussels will not allow access to the common market without a commitment to open borders. My understanding is that this is how the connection of trade/immigration is meant to function, a carrot-and-stick bit that works to position cosmopolitanism and diversity as in the best interests of the financial class. This can feel unsatisfying to hard leftists, because it means bending the bankers into your allies instead of condemning them for pustulant bloodsuckers, but at least on a smaller scale I think I've seen the tactic work: in Mike Pence's Indiana, where it was the screaming of the Indianapolis business interests that got him to roll back that appalling bit of "religious freedom" anti-gay pro-discrimination legislation.
Am I right to think that the oft-quoted bit from HRC's Goldman Sachs speech, her dream of open trade and open borders, is expressing interest in the carrot-and-stick bend-the-bankers tactic I outlined above? Certainly, a lot of that speech reminds me of the maneuver I used to rely on when teaching intro to social justice topics at University: begin your appeal on the assumption that your listeners are ethical and engaged, and you can to some extent force them to live up to that idealized image of themselves -- or at least to sort of want to, which gives you a point for further leverage.
I read a comment recently that the US right and left are both re-evaluating their relationships to globalization, and I think that's accurate -- the Trump campaign is really pulling for isolationism, in contrast to the Republican vision during the Bush years, and more than a decade out from the frantic argumentation from the left against military interventionism in Iraq, it's once more possible to look back critically at the old anti-globalism arguments. As an older millennial voter, one of the things that is most striking to me about the old guard of anti-globalization leftists is their weird technophobia; witness this bizarre argument from Erik Loomis (who tbh I both enjoy and am frustrated by because he thinks so very like my own father).
no subject
Date: 2016-10-14 05:47 pm (UTC)The UK has *always* been of the view we joined a trading community, and every single step toward closer union was fought tooth and nail by our government. I can't count the number of labour market committees where I was writing briefing for our negotiators that said essentially "No." Sometimes, on good days, I wrote "Yes, but..."
I don't think the EU as it stands now will ever support free immigration from outside its outer borders. It's about facilitating movement within only. It's not a *noble* institution, you understand. Not altruistic. It's as protectionist in its way as the US is perceived as being. The UK's former dominions (as they are quaintly known), Germany and France's African colonies etc will always be on the outside.
You mention legislation that has to be implemented by each state. You have a true Federalist structure, though, where the centre can mandate a single law. It doesn't quite work that way with the EU. They issue directives that set out a minimum that's to be achieved (on things like working hours, etc) but that's then beset with exceptions and conditions, and then each individual government in the EU produces its own national laws based on the directive, according to its own national tradition.
Directives almost always are agreed at the EU level through qualified majority voting. Hard to explain, but it's a weighted system where each member state gets a certain number of votes depending on a huge number of factors (things like population size). That meant the UK could often be outvoted and have to implement the directives anyway. Huge peeve factor there!
The thing about political union issues though is that these were not done as directives from the EU parliament or the Brussels 'cabinets' that look after various aspects of government (employment, health, justice). They are done at Treaty level and that requires unanimity. That gave the UK far more power. We just said "give us what we want or we won't ratify the treaty so you won't be able to go ahead". So the UK has never had a totally porous border with the rest of the EU - we opted out of the Schengen Agreement that implemented it - and nor did we join the Euro. We're an island off the mainland coast and our mentality, our approach to unification, reflects that. This, I think, mirrors your ACA example better?
It's all horribly complex and Brexit is a huge worry. Yes, the rest of Europe (at government level) is probably quite pleased that the grumpy Brits will no longer be holding them back and they can crack on with ever closer union. But the groundswell of discontent that fuelled Brexit - fear for jobs, feelings of helplessness and disempowerment - are rampant across the member states. It all feels rather hopeless. A grand experiment that may not get the results people hoped for.