Slavery and Free trade

[corporatewhore]

Al Sharpton brought up a very good point in tonights debate about nafta and slavery. americans said slavery was justified because of the economic dependency and people like Thomas jefferson said slavery was bad and should be ended...eventually. today People say the say thing about nafta/ftaa/wto/imf Your thoughts please (imho thats a 18th century cop out not suitable for the 21st century)
edited for clarity

[camero]

1. Slavery and Employment

Both make human beings a commodity. I would compare NAFTA/GATT/WTO more to serfdom but it's not a wholly untrue comparison.

[GreyV]

2. Grow up children!

Grow up children, it's a competitive world out there. If you can't compete, produce both in quantity and quality, you will disappear as any meaningful market or economic force.

NAFTA and WTO were nice back in 90s while the upper and middle classes were getting richer, eh? Now that the profits have slowed down, it seems Americans don't want to play their own game. Game we started, and even claim to have invented it.. Or maybe we cant play it anymore. By game I mean good ole capitalism. Look at China.. they are the largest and most populous nation on earth, that happens to be quite communist. They are not taking the old Soviet route: "Yankees have built a bigger tank comrade, we must build bigger ones comrade!" They are not spending themselves into economic ruin by creating a largest defense budget this planet has seen. We are! Nope, they are beating us at our own game. Quite successfully I might add.

Yankee don't wanna play no more, eh?

Well America, you wanted it, you got it!

[girl gone mad]

4. China?

India, perhaps, but China isn't in any kind of a position to threaten American dominance.

[GreyV]

7. India?

You must be joking. India is always a step away from economic collapse. It's one big health catastrophe as well. Diseases that are virtually extinct still run rampant across India. Too many political branches/ideologies represented by dozens of national and local parties are always fighting each other and are creating political instability. And have been for the last 35 years. Fifth rate military that without its very small nuclear arsenal can be rendered useless by any modern and smaller military force doesn't help matters either. I mean MiG-21s are still considered viable by the Indian air force. MiG-21, whose origins date back to late 1940s. We are talking 60+ year old technology. Lets not forget that every attempt at military self-reliance has failed. Every project from new aircraft types to new small arms ventures have have failed. If it wasn't for Russia, who knows what awful state Indian military would be. What I am saying?! It is already seriously outdated and in awful state!

[david_vincent]

6. Not exactly

Certain ideologues and lobbyists whose jobs will never be in jeopardy
wanted it, and were allowed to get it over the public interest. Don't try to pretend that Joe Sixpack was screaming for free trade because it's simply not true.

[el_gato]

10. I didn't want it and I never supported NAFTA

so your categorical statements are out of place.

[mot78]

3. Makes sense to me

NAFTA is to sweat-shop, as the cotton kingdom was to plantations.

(Hey that makes a good SAT analogy!)

[corporatewhore]

9. that is a good analogy!!

[girl gone mad]

5. From a moral standpoint,

having child laborers working long hours in sweatshops earning pennies on the dollar so corporate stockholders can get richer is little better than being a slaveholder.

The argument that these children would be prostitutes or completely destitute if it weren't for the crappy jobs offered by Nike and The Gap is as tenuous as the argument that slavetraders used in the 18th century, that Africans were uncivilized and incapable of becoming civilized and were better off as slaves than living a tribal life.

[Lostnote03]

8. Predatorial Nature.....

....of Internatonal agreements with countrys that are attempting to bring their countrys into the modern world appear to be backlashing against us......I don't mind the thought of jobs being outsourced as long as our leaders are preparing our economy for the fallout which is obviously occuring....they haved failed it appears to prepare our society for the rollover effect here.....by that I mean our industrial engine is more geared to status quote as opposed to envigerated and dynamic change.....

[revcarol]

11. We are just exporting the slavery to other countries.

People to be held and worked in inhumane conditions that are unacceptable in any civilized country. Local politicos getting fat off the bribes given by the multi-nationals to move their capital there.

AND, HERE AT HOME, downward wage spiral caused by companies threatening to send their business overseas, which they generally do anyway a year or two after getting major wage and benefit concessions!! And people so desperate for anything to bring in money that they will work those minimum wage WalMart-type jobs, with no affordable health care and no benefits, just to keep their rent paid.

WAGE SLAVERY OR EXPORTED SLAVERY: two sides of the same coin.

And don't th;ink that just because one of the candidates(unnamed) wants to withdraw from NAFTA and forget about the WTO that this is going to fly. Withdrawing from NAFTA is illegal under the WTO.

And speaking of CHINA, IMHO it's a matter of national security that China, a nation that wishes us ill, holds so much of our national debt!!They could make our economy collapse in a NY minute if they sold this debt or wouldn't buy any more. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, "national security unnamed candidate!"

[Moderator]

12. Locking

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