But to be blunt I think a number of groups came out
looking pretty bad during this whole debate. Here’s my run down.
Pundits: Remember
when Obama’s presidency was doomed because many of the members of his party in
Congress disagreed with him over a trade treaty? (This had never happened before of course.) I wonder if any pundits do too? Personally I think Obama should just paraphrase Malcolm Tucker and announce at his next press conference, “Before you get any
ideas just remember that I’m Lazarus, and not normal boring Lazarus, no no no,
I’m self-resurrecting Lazarus!”
Free Traders: There
used to be strong arguments for lowering tariffs in general, but that debate
should be over because tariffs are incredibly low globally and especially in
the area that is affected by the TPP. The old school Ricardian arguments about
comparative advantage just don’t make a whole lot of sense anymore and free
trade advocates and their economist friends should stop treating up like
children and pretending we are creating another European Coal and Steel Community
or something. The TPP is largely about things like patents and copy right protections, and
that’s fine, but if people want to advance those policies they should explain
why copy right and patent protection is so important, not pretend we are still
living in 1956 or something.
Anti-TPP People: I
am sympathetic to a lot of the arguments that people who oppose the whole TPP thing have made
over the last few months. It’s true that globalization seems to create a small
group of supper wealthy winners and large groups of losers. Likewise the labor and environmental records of many of
the corporations and countries that stand to benefit from this agreement are
pretty awful.
Having said that, the opposition against fast track negotiating
authority and demands that every negotiation be put on YouTube or something is
totally insane. All serious negations of this magnitude (in business, labor
negotiations, or foreign affairs) have to be carried out in some degree of
secrecy or they rapidly collapse or just turn into pointless displays fake
negotiations where everyone just recites per-written talking points and no one
offers anything and nothing is decided on. The only way to do anything like
this is to hammer out a deal and then take it back to your respective sides and
see if you can sell it. Otherwise the negotiations collapse as outsiders start
screaming about “YOU CAN’T GIVE THAT AWAY!” or "THAT'S NOT ENOUGH FOR THAT!" or whatever. Otherwise they become pointless kabuki theater of people pretending to negotiate.
If you want to criticize or defend the deal fine
(personally I think it is marginally worse than break even overall, but sort of
inevitable anyway) but please do on substantive points. Nobody is served by
these pointless and ridiculous arguments to nowhere.
