I'm having a hard time understanding your antidote. It sounds like you're calling for a move back to a system of protectionist trade blocs; like we had in the early 20th century. That system was extremely problematic, fraught with drastic deflationary and inflationary pressures in adjacent markets as everyone chased their tail trying to be the last one on board the tariff train. It gave us World War I, and when we didn't see fit to fix it; we got World War II.

I might be mistaken, but I've always understood the Bretton Woods conference to be essentially the fundamental problem with a global economy configured the way you seem to suggest it should be, and more importantly how we ought to design to fix it, so we didn't get Adolf Hitler 2.0?

The problem isn't globalization. The problem is the imbalance that's been pursued under the auspices of free-trade. Namely that we've gone to tremendous lengths to liberalize capital flows between markets, but we've done comparatively little to do the same for labor. Labor mobility is still trapped in an antiquated nation-state paradigm, while capital has moved on to a new paradigm. Now it's probably true that certain characteristics unique to people (social ties, cultural ties, mortality, etc.) will always prevent them from enjoying the kind of more-optimal trajectory between economic functions that capital is capable of, but that's the issue to be dealt with here; not some kind of veiled protectionism. Our multi-lateral trade agreements need to provide the kind of mobility for labor between markets that capital has been enjoying for a generation or more. That will allow people to chase quality-work the way that capital chases cheap-labor.

Those who advocated it did not anticipate businesses in one country setting up subsidiaries in another to produce for the home market more cheaply, be it in the form of Indian call centers or auto assembly plants in Mexico.

Off-shoring was embraced because it undercut organized labor and kept inflation low. No one anticipated China would acquire a comparative advantage in everything.

You sound like Pat Buchanan. I always knew that if let a 'liberal' talk long enough you get populism then fascism.

David Sirota isn't invoking a trade protection regime simply for reasons of nationalism or chauvinism.

He's making the point that many other people have tried to make over the years- that labor conditions and environmental standards count for something important. Imperative, even.

Globalization fast-tracking was initially pitched to the American people as a process that urgently needed to begin, as a way of recognizing and fostering the interdependence of nations. But it was always hinted that at once the various overseas economies were up and running as significant producers of goods, issues like labor and environmental standards would return to the table as matters worth addressing- rather than as "externalities" that played no role other than acting as impediments to "lower prices" and "faster growth."

Well, stick the following in your cost-benefit analysis.

http://www.chinahush.com/2009/10/21/amazing-pictures-pollution-in-china/

[link at signature]

This is happening on the same planet for everyone reading this message.

It's about time that the playing field be levelled upward, not downward. And if that means that countries unwilling to invest responsibly in labor and environmental standards lose out to nations like the USA because extra duties are levied on the import of their goods, I don't consider that to be a function of national chauvinism or isolationism. As proposed, the duties would go away, as long as the business concerns located in other countries invest in reasonable improvements.

In fact, I think that's urgent and necessary. I can't imagine how the Chinese business elite would be starved for the capital to make such improvements, at this point in the globalization process.

I'm aware that there's another school of Salon posters, exemplified by the views of people like JaaZee, who evidently think that the core of the answer to the USA's present economic problems is to emulate the labor and environmental standards of the People's Republic of China...that is, if they don't support outright undercutting China in that regard.

For those of you who seem amazed by the giant sucking sound that has been occuring over the last 20 years - anybody remember that guy who predicted exactly this scenario would happen?

That guy with the funny ears? The last real 3rd party candidate for president?

Say what you want about Ross Perot, but he was dead on about that prediction. And as I recall, his presence helped keep those debates focused on actually talking about issues like jobs, economy, etc.

Instead of the scripted 2 party-agreed-upon theater they call debates now.

And yes, I voted for Perot. I was a little embarrassed to admit that after he turned out to be a bit nutty.

But I never trusted Clinton. And we definitely got the results of a giant sucking sound with Clinton. In more ways than one.

(Oh yes I did!)

Overall, I think we agree on the issues here- but I edited out the part of my previous comment that I intended to address to you, concerning your remark that

No one anticipated China would acquire a comparative advantage in everything.

Actually, quite a few people did anticipate that happening, some as early as 20 years ago- at some unspecified point "down the road a ways."

And now, "down the road a ways" is here.

At this point, I question how much trade protectionism leverage we could ever manage to exert on any of our creditor nations. And that's particularly the case with China. Unfortunately so, since I'm inclined to agree with David Sirota. But I doubt that our economic position is strong enough to even attempt to influence them with duties or levies.

You aren't proposing to use the market; you are proposing to use heavy handed government intervention.

The underlying assumption in some of your projected benefits is that US companies moved overseas so they could pollute. This is unlikely to be true since the movement overseas began before environmental laws became an issue. This law you're in love with isn't going to destroy the cost reduction dynamic which is driven by lower regulatory (only one of which is environmental), labor, and other costs but it will distort it a bit. That distortion will also result in consequences which you will not have imagined.

In order to do this, you will have the USG determining weather or not an individual manufacturing process is "green enough" to evade tariffs. Presumably, this would apply to US manufacturers as well since current environmental law applies at the plant level, not the process level. Additionally, we'd have a whole new "environmental black list" of countries who are charged exorbitant tariffs for being insufficiently devoted to greenness to add to all the other "black lists" we have for countries.

Stupid.