<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/04/magazine/04mexico.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/04/magazine/04mexico.html</a>
Sounds vaguely familiar…</p>
<p>Yup. Fruits of NAFTA. Chalk that one up to Clinton/Gore and the neo-liberals.</p>
<p>Wow…
If NAFTA isn’t creating jobs in Mexico (and it certainly isn’t in the United States), where are the jobs going?</p>
<p>The jobs aren’t going anywhere, they’re disappearing. Karl Marx was right; machines are taking over. Who needs to hire workers when you can just buy a machine to do everything a hundred times faster and more efficiently?</p>
<p>Let me explain how NAFTA works: Mexico (or anywhere in South or Central America, for that matter) cannot restrict imports or exports. All of a sudden, no one in Mexico buys Mexican crops because it’s cheaper to buy American crops. The farmers who make their living from farming are driven off their land. The money pours into the pockets of the industrial farms in the Midwest that can turn out crops the cheapest with their massive machines and disposable workforces. That applies to small American farmers as well as Mexican farmers. In other words, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and if Robin Hood comes to save the day, we spit on him and call him a liberal. That’s America.</p>
<p>“The farmers who make their living from farming are driven off their land.”</p>
<p>You can find them picking cherries in Yakima, Washington this week.</p>
<p>Yes, you will indeed find those illegal immigrants from Mexico in the agricultural lands of the west, where they are exploited by the landowners for what basically amounts to free labor.</p>
<p>We complain about illegal immigrants, but in fact they are the only reason we can sit in our comfy homes and enjoy fresh-picked strawberries and other delicacy fruits.</p>
<p>Read “Reefer Madness” by Eric Schlosser. It’s basically a follow-up to “Fast Food Nation” and shows just how crooked capitalism is.</p>
<p>Or you could go back and read “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair, the original from the socialist left…</p>
<p>Corporate socialism is what NAFTA is all about - corporations uniting in their class interests, under the guise of government, to reduce wages, worsen working conditions, and throw people off their land.</p>
<p><a href=“http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/news/business/globaleconomy/asparagus27.html[/url]”>http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/news/business/globaleconomy/asparagus27.html</a></p>
<p>cannery worker over qualified to get a job at Walmart</p>
<p>“The Jungle” is a good book to read by any means, but “Reefer Madness” specifically discusses migrant workers and the conditions they suffer under, which is why I recommended it. Eric Schlosser is an excellent writer and journalist as well.</p>
<p>So are there any up sides to NAFTA for the average working joe (on either side of the border?)? Why was Clinton (Republican from Ark—oh, wait…he was a Democrat wasn’t he?) so hot to trot for this treatie? </p>
<p>What did Ross Perot mean a few years ago when referring to, “That giant sucking sound?” Was he just trying to instill fear that American jobs would hemmorhage south and bankrupt the American working class? Was he completely wrong? </p>
<p>Agribusiness—pphet—I spit on its name!</p>
<p>NAFTA benefits the big businesses. And of course, the corporations fill the pockets of the politicians. All of our politicians are desperate to kiss up to the rich men.</p>
<p>Our jobs aren’t being stolen by any Mexicans or immigrants, don’t worry. We’re the ones sucking up those jobs and putting them through the “flesh-to-cash” converter.</p>
<p>But of course you already knew that. Don’t call it news from the “left” unless you know what it is. The “left” aren’t those greedy politicians who pretend to care about a few token issues and act exactly the same as everyone else. Martin Luther King Jr., Vladimir Lenin; those were the “left”; the ones who actually wanted change.</p>
<p>Yup TianXia, it’s just as I suspected…</p>
<p>But I do rather resent the placing of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Vladimir Leniin in the same cohort. But while you’re going there, why not add Stalin and Pol Pot?</p>
<p>Corporate greed doesn’t know political boundaries.</p>
<p>Vladimir Lenin and Martin Luther King Jr. were both great revolutionaries who wanted to right injustice. What’s so bad about associating them? They fought for the same thing through different means.</p>
<p>Stalin and Pol Pot were power-hungry tyrants who abused their authority. They don’t belong with Lenin and King.</p>
<p>Having inefficient farms and charging everyone in Mexico more than they should be paying is not good economics in the long run. Mexico needs to find out what it does well and get busy doing it better than anyone else. Maybe they need to bring down some Midwest farmers to show them how to be efficient. We have taught other countries to feed themselves and produce a surplus.</p>
<p>I think the situation has less to do with “efficiency” and more to do with “subsidy.” United States agriculture leans quite heavily on Uncle Sam for its place in the sun.</p>
<p>“Mexico more than they should be paying is not good economics in the long run. Mexico needs to find out what it does well and get busy doing it better than anyone else. Maybe they need to bring down some Midwest farmers to show them how to be efficient. We have taught other countries to feed themselves and produce a surplus.”</p>
<p>Actually, they used to feed themselves AND had a surplus. Before NAFTA.</p>
<p>They have, however, found out what works very well, and they do it better than anyone else. They ship workers to the United States, that needs them quite badly, the workers work hard, and ship foreign exchange back to Mexico, which is then used in the construction of new homes and businesses. It is very, every effective.</p>
<p>That’s true and we need to find a system to make that work legally. However given that hard working and adaptable workforce, they should be able to develop some home based industries that would be viable. Maybe the country needs to improve in areas that make Mexico unattractive for investment. I am sure there are many.</p>
<p>There are many countries that have used this strategy for development. Coastal south India (Kerala) have been sending folks to the desert reaches of Arabia for 40 years, with massive new money brought back home for homes and businesses. Indonesia and the Philippines supply all the labor for the cruise ship industries. The Phillipines and India supply massive foreign aid to the United States by training doctors and nurses at their own expense for American urban hospitals. For a long time, Malaysians worked in Thailand. </p>
<p>If Mexico becomes more viable for its workforce, the U.S. loses a major part of its workforce, and the huge subsidy for its Social Security system. A better solution might be more open borders - as a percentage of the total population, immigration (legal and undocumented combined) is at a 20-year low, and in many areas, that’s a problem. </p>
<p>The alternative, which I prefer, is junking NAFTA, but I doubt the neo-liberals would ever buy it. But without that, why should Mexico junk a system that really works?</p>