Hey, elucidator, ya know what happens when the US declares an area to be a free trade zone? A lot of companies suddenly feel the need to move in and set up shop to do business there. So maybe the Palestinians aren’t producing a whole lot now, but once they get declared a free trade zone you can bet that they’ll soon have something to export.
Perhaps I lack your depth of economic acumen, but that sounds suspiciously like a magic wand to me. “Free trade zone” and poof! economic prosperity. I should like a bit more substantiation, if you don’t mind.
Never said anything about economic prosperity. No doubt the first (and quite possibly only) places to move in will be the sweatshops. Free trade doesn’t equal economic prosperity. Fair Trade might, but I haven’t seen enough evidence of that as of yet to say for certain.
Free trade does many things. One of the things it does is prevent local businesses from being protected from market forces. This is good for the Arab world for two reasons - the first is that consumers in these countries get a break. They are free to buy the cheapest, best products they can find, whether they are made in the country or not. The second thing it does is force local businesses to learn to be competitive. And once they learn that, the economy starts to grow rapidly.
It is also liberalizing. You can’t have free trade without mixing cultures to some degree, and having to deal with people in business forces barriers to come down somewhat. People of other cultures learn to deal with each other. This is a moderating effect.
It’s telling that the response from the Middle East to this proposal has been overwhelmingly positive.
By the by, I had no idea there was some sort of restriction as to the number of times one uses a sig. I am chastened that I have offended Millroyj’s delicate sensibilities, and offer as much apology as is deserved.
But am I perhaps ungenerous? I should hate to think so. If the poor fellow has none of his own, why, he can have mine! I have others.
Sorry, Sam, but that screams for a cite.
No, I gave you all the credit you deserve. You still haven’t given us your solution to the problems of the world, just more nihilistic criticism.
Again, I’m impressed with your literary skills, even “bemused”.
The problems of the world? All of them? Cheez Louise, guy, I never claimed to walk on water. I got no self-esteem problems, but Lord have mercy!
You seem to imply that one cannot criticize Fearless Misleader’s plans unless one can offer an alternative. Ain’t necessairly so. I see a man about to dangle his scrotum in a pool of piranha, I am obliged to yell “Stop that, you dumb shit!” I may recommend that he go bowling, or take up knitting, I may not. But first and foremost, he’s got to cease and desist!
Heaven knows, I’ve got my faults, but “nihilism” isn’t on the list. Its a long list, but that ain’t on it.
Just trying to get you off the bashing wagon. You sound like Rush Limbaugh after someone’s rung the Pavlovian Clinton bell.
I’ve been watching the Mid East situation since the 70’s and I would hate to be in the President’s seat. Criticism is fine with me but it’s usually easy to tell if someone likes or dislikes the President. I try not to use Clinton in a sentence because I’m not found of him. Although, he did seem to have a firm grasp of things when he was in the White House (sorry).
Now if you could get Dubya’s Scrotum over a pool of piranha, I would take the opportunity to teach him not to say “uh” after every sentence.
If we go back to the original question, I think a free trade zone is one brick in a foundation that will improve the whole situation. Establishing a Palestinian State won’t mean anything if they don’t have jobs. A free trade zone is just one of the ways that work toward that goal.
It happens to be a message board rule, actually. Only one sig per thread. Of course, you being here for three years and 4000 posts should know that. Unless you are deliberately flaunting the rules, which I imagine is the case.
Sam,
I will talk about the idea, like you said.
I am a little ambivalent on the subject. If it would bring peace to the middle east, then I would be all for it, but I am not so sure that it would work. Take a look at Nafta. Sure, Mexico seems a little better off, but you have to realize that a free trade zone doesn’t work without other things. The idea is to take labor capital and production and markets and orgainize them internationally. But when you don’t allow labor to flow freely along with the other things (eg. have people be able to move freely as in Europe) then I don’t see it working.
Picture Mexico. Thousands of Mexicans try to enter the us every single day. There are maquilladoras, factories on the border that hire Mexicans for very cheap and have very poor working conditions. The inputs are shipped in from the US free of charge, and constructed in Mexico, then shipped out. Of all of the foreign income in NAFTA only 6 percent stays in Mexico (no cite, I heard this in a class). In the end, the differences in labor laws don’t help. The people are exploited. So in that case, I don’t see the Mid-East becoming an economic powerhouse anytime soon. This is of course classic neoliberalism. But, when did neoliberal economic policies ever create a success? Argentina? but that, of course failed.
However, in the end, I would say that a free-trade zone could possibly help. I don’t know so much about the one that they are planning. I know Bush has a smart economist that he just hired. Blinder’s his name. However in the Mid-east, it wouldn’t be so possible for the israelis to exploit everyone else like the US does mexico, because of the relative sizes of the economies. I never said that neoliberal policies can’t work, they just haven’t yet, and this could prove it wrong.
Trade has created an incentive for unity in the past. Post-war Europe is a spetacular example. The European Coal and Steel Community was the beggining of the EU. The cooperation was pushed by the US to keep Europe unified. The question is who will it benefit to have peace? Will it be only the richest of the rich, or will it also help the poorer folks?
In all, I am a little ambivalant about the prospect at first, because I know that free-trade dominated by the US won’t really help so much. I don’t believe that this kind of comsumption that we are into nowadays is good, and I think that much of our society is deteriorating because of it, but that is a different matter. If the Iraqis, Syrians, Israelis, Jordans, and whoever else can learn to be happy by buying gadgets and watching TV, its better than them killing themselves and us. The question is: would they fall for it?
I think the word you’re groping for is “flout”, meaning to aggressively disobey. You’re welcome. Always glad to help.
As to this rule, I can find no reference to it, and you are, so far as I recall, the only person to mention it to me. This may be due to cringing fear of my wrath and scathing wit, or perhaps because no one else realized how crucial and vitally important it is.
No one but you, that is.
Declaring oneself for World Peace is also a fantastic idea, however to be a truly fantastic idea, it needs, IMO, to be practical.
given political conditions both in the US and Europe, and abstracting entirely away from the serious problems in the region, there is no way this is anything more than a fine little pie in the sky make the Journos happy deal.
Dead letter.
(Never mind pushiung the next Doha round is far better)
Cheesemeister
“Journos happy deal”? “Doha round”? Wha? Huh? Duh?
Fair Trade is a meaningless little phrase bandied about by people who understand neither trade nor economics.
Doha round is the current WTO negotiations, upcoming session shortly. SHould be dealing with agricultural and TRIPS issues as I recall. However, how it will go depends on whether London / Paris Club tensions can be resolved. There is an enormous amount of bad will out there now, partly connected with Iraq, partly with US scofflaw attitude towards neg. WTO decision in re tax etc.
However it appears the Bush Admin is once again taking the position it don’t need multilaterals, that bilateral one offs are better. Never mind bilaterals are economically less efficient and trade distorting.
And “Journos happy deal”? Is that, like, at McDonalds and you get a toy with it?
Missed this, should go to the substance:
All well and good, however things ain’t quite that straight forward.
Primo: capacity to react to competition in the near term is limited in most Arab economies, although trade barriers are already coming down in most, exceptions being Syria, Libya, Algeria and to an extent Egypt. It’s all well and fine for the theorist to abstract away from the difficult transition period, but reality is another matter. Given the fragility of most regimes in the area and the limited resource bases, both human and natural, one is looking at some very difficult transitions. Of course, that is not a reason not to try, but ‘free trade’ is not magic wand, it is a tool. A tool that in political areas might result in ‘secular’ regimes falling into the hands of Islamists. I personally think that would not be such a disaster, but security issues run into economic ones.
Secondu: it is a bit of hand waving to jump from ‘learning to be competitive’ to growing rapidly. Learning to be competitive is a process, which I can tell you from direct, hands on experience, is time consuming given the lack of flexibility in socio-economic structures here, above all when it seems imposed. Further to that, the trade agreements have to cover what the countries in question can actually compete on. Being moderately familiar with them, I can say that they do not. E.g. the Jordan FTA does not have terribly good concessions on textiles, and does not cover agri all that well either. Better than the EU Med Basin initiative ‘Association Pact’ agreement, but still not good. Jordan has a slight advantage insofar as it also has the QIZ (Qualifying Industrial Zones) agreement that allows value added work off of Israeli materials. Israel got a sweet deal on its FTA (gee, is that surprising? Political oomph to get through the protectionist morons in the Senate.), and Jordanian value adds can get through duty free with around 8% Israeli value add.
The problem with all this, besides the fact that the carve outs hit the developing countries in precisely the places where they are likely to be most competitive is that they are narrow and bilateral. Trade diverting. It would make infinately more sense to press on the Doha round to make general trade barriers come down then to get bogged down in numerous bilaterals or mini-laterals. Having followed the interminable Egypto-American neg. over neg. an FTA I can say that regional consciousness on this is pretty piss poor.
Bother, pie in the sky. Other issues trump this easily. The QIZ and FTA items btw Jordan and Israel helped when politics was going well 97-2000, have gone away since. Economics will not trump politics, it can help lever change but will not trump the emotional issues.
Even now coming into Jordan to look at deals I get idjits who want to know if we have Israeli money (don’t actually) and if so, they don’t want it. I tell them to fuck off, if they want our financing they can fucking suck it up, if not take a hike. But regardless, it is illustrative that there are strong feelings that trump the economics.
I’m sure it has, but it is not at all telling if you know the history here. Medh, medh, medh.
It would be nice to get some deals done – Morocco’s is said to be close to closing, but it’s been close for a few months – but I have no illusions that a regional trade pact can be reached nor that it will leverage political change. Seen enough of this crap over the past ten years to know better.
A “Policy Initiative” to get the journalists all happy and lathered up. Journo = journalist. I think it’s enlgish slang I picke d up.
BTW, I should note that I do not want to slam Bush per se, for advancing the idea, it is simply that from my experience it is not a realistic nor effective means to pursue an otherwise worthy policy goal, and further that we need to pay attention to the interplay of socio-economic structures and other policies here. Transition in the region is not going to be easy, that I can assure you of. (If you look back to my thread on the Iraq War you’ll note in the begin. some comments on Egypt and its policy illnesses.)