Forget what the pundits and some of the elements of the Democratic corporate establishment think: John Edwards is reflecting the sentiment of Iowans when he points out the dangerous effects of globalization.
Today's Wall Street Journal tells us this:
At a John Deere plant here, bright green tractors bound for Brazil, Russia and China roll off assembly lines. Global demand for tractors is good, and that's been good for Waterloo.
Yet over the last couple of years, workers and voters in this blue-collar manufacturing outpost -- and throughout Iowa -- have grown decidedly downbeat about globalization. Trade has become such a hot subject that Democratic presidential candidates seeking support in Iowa's influential Jan. 3 caucuses are turning into trade skeptics, and the issue is splitting traditionally free-trade Republicans.
Iowa's ambivalence is all the more remarkable because the state is on the whole a big winner from global trade. "Iowa, as much as any other state, is on the plus side of the ledger," says James Leach, a 30-year Republican congressman from Iowa who now runs Harvard University's Institute of Politics. "It would be highly ironic if pro-protectionist candidates prevailed in the Iowa caucuses." Trade wasn't always such a high priority: In the 2004 Iowa caucus, Richard Gephardt, the most outspoken Democrat on the issue, attracted so few votes he subsequently pulled out of the race.
The story gets at a point many of us have been making for some time:
While the farm economy eventually improved, Deere's employment never rebounded to its previous levels and workers began to see threats from overseas. Tractors made in Waterloo are no longer fully American-made and are instead outfitted with parts from Mexico and Italy. Deere recently completed the acquisition of China's Ningbo Benye Tractor & Automobile Manufacture Co., which makes low-horsepower tractors.And Deere has pressured the United Auto Workers, which represents Deere's hourly workers, to cut wage and benefit costs. In 1997, the UAW agreed to a two-tiered compensation structure under which new hires would be paid at a lower rate and get less-generous benefits. Today workers start at $12.01 an hour, about $4 an hour less than the previous entry-level wage.
That is, that this isn't about the question of globalization in the abstract. It's about THE RULES OF GLOBALIZATION. Too many people think that globalization is just a slogan to mouth without looking at the rules that are governing trade. The fact is: globalization is nothing new. We've traded ever since humans walked on the earth. We need to stop being enthralled by the slogan "globalization" and think about how we set up rules that govern those trading relationships.
That Iowans are worried about trade is not really a surprise. Even Republicans are rejecting so-called "free trade."
Actually, what worries me are dumb remarks from so-called "liberals." Take this one in the story from former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who was one of NAFTa's big proponents and helped Bill Clinton push that deal through:
"It's unfortunate that the Democrats are willing to describe trade as part of the problem," says Robert Reich, President Clinton's labor secretary. He worries the current crop of Democratic contenders will undo Mr. Clinton's progress and potentially enact policies that hurt economic growth. "It's pandering to a misconception in the public. The truth is that trade is good for the U.S. but that some people are burdened by it far more than others. We've got to make them all winners, but you don't make them winners by attacking trade," he says.
With all due respect to Reich, he is full of shit. It is the very framework that Bill Clinton encouraged that is the problem--not the Democrats who are trying to undo that framework.
If anything can come from John Edwards bid for the presidency, however it turns out, it would be a great victory for all working people if we could change the debate on trade from the idiotic notion that people who are opposed to so-called "free trade" are not interested in trading relationships TO the debate over creating trade that isn't based on lowering wages.