If you’re one of those people who follow Congress, you know our elected representatives will soon debate whether we should extend the current most-favored-nation trading status to the People’s Republic of China. Deng Xiaoping is dead but little has changed in China; anyone who has the courage to publicly disagree with the government is dragged off to jail. Once in prison, dissidents are put to work in factories, making among other things, articles of clothing. Clothes made by prisoners are exported to the western market, where they are very competitive, because political prisoners are not paid for their labor. This is what economists call a comparative advantage.
Because the bureaucrats who run the prisons do not share the profits from the clothing with the prisoners they each have more buying power. American industries believe China is a good market and are lobbying Congress to continue China’s most-favored-nation trading status. American corporations are also seeking to increase trade with Burma, where the SLORC – the State Law and Order Restoration Council – is keeping Aung San Suu Chi – who won the Nobel Prize and the presidential election – under house arrest. Corporations are also seeking increased trade with Nigeria – where General Sani Abacha is holding President Moshood Abiola in prison and who executed writer and activist Ken Saro Wiwa.
Iran, Iraq, Indonesia, the list goes on and on. All around the world American businessmen are cultivating contacts among the bloodthirsty and overbearing. So eager are American companies to get into the oppressed world that they have created a coalition of companies, trade groups and think tanks to lobby Congress and the administration against imposing sanctions on outlaw nations. According to the Houston Chronicle, the group – called USA Engage – will lobby against sanctions in general, because lobbying against specific sanctions draws an uncomfortable link between the corporation and the crimes of the intended client nation. USA Engage spokesman Frank Kitteredge said, “Foreign companies and governments are understandably reluctant to enter into any long-term commercial relationships with US companies if the threat of sanctions looms.”
By the same token, US companies DO NOT seem to be reluctant to engage in long-term commercial relationships regardless of how badly democratic principles may be shattered in the host nation. In an ad in the New York Times, Mobil Oil wonders aloud whether US sanctions are viewed abroad as just so much “global paternalism.”
If you want to know if sanctions work, if they’re a good idea, ask someone who’s been involved with them. Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela will tell you sanctions played a major role in ending decades of oppressive rule by South Africa’s white minority. If you want to know, ask the Tianamen Square students who have left China. Ask the dissidents still in prison, making jerseys and sneakers for the American market.
Back in America, another lobbying effort is attempting to open American prisons to business, to use American prisoners to produce – among other things – articles of clothing. Sound familiar?
Costs of Free Trade
If you’re one of those people who follow Congress, you know our elected representatives will soon debate whether we should extend the current most-favored-nation trading status to the People’s Republic of China. Deng Xiaoping is dead but little has changed in China; anyone who has the courage to publicly disagree with the government is dragged off to jail. Once in prison, dissidents are put to work in factories, making among other things, articles of clothing. Clothes made by prisoners are exported to the western market, where they are very competitive, because political prisoners are not paid for their labor. This is what economists call a comparative advantage.
Because the bureaucrats who run the prisons do not share the profits from the clothing with the prisoners they each have more buying power. American industries believe China is a good market and are lobbying Congress to continue China’s most-favored-nation trading status. American corporations are also seeking to increase trade with Burma, where the SLORC – the State Law and Order Restoration Council – is keeping Aung San Suu Chi – who won the Nobel Prize and the presidential election – under house arrest. Corporations are also seeking increased trade with Nigeria – where General Sani Abacha is holding President Moshood Abiola in prison and who executed writer and activist Ken Saro Wiwa.
Iran, Iraq, Indonesia, the list goes on and on. All around the world American businessmen are cultivating contacts among the bloodthirsty and overbearing. So eager are American companies to get into the oppressed world that they have created a coalition of companies, trade groups and think tanks to lobby Congress and the administration against imposing sanctions on outlaw nations. According to the Houston Chronicle, the group – called USA Engage – will lobby against sanctions in general, because lobbying against specific sanctions draws an uncomfortable link between the corporation and the crimes of the intended client nation. USA Engage spokesman Frank Kitteredge said, “Foreign companies and governments are understandably reluctant to enter into any long-term commercial relationships with US companies if the threat of sanctions looms.”
By the same token, US companies DO NOT seem to be reluctant to engage in long-term commercial relationships regardless of how badly democratic principles may be shattered in the host nation. In an ad in the New York Times, Mobil Oil wonders aloud whether US sanctions are viewed abroad as just so much “global paternalism.”
If you want to know if sanctions work, if they’re a good idea, ask someone who’s been involved with them. Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela will tell you sanctions played a major role in ending decades of oppressive rule by South Africa’s white minority. If you want to know, ask the Tianamen Square students who have left China. Ask the dissidents still in prison, making jerseys and sneakers for the American market.
Back in America, another lobbying effort is attempting to open American prisons to business, to use American prisoners to produce – among other things – articles of clothing. Sound familiar?
What goes around, comes around.