NAFTA was called out about 80 years ago

And all because of one man. Ricardo Flores Magon. He now joins Percy Bysshe Shelley, Martin Luther King Jr, Bob MArley and John Lennon in my book of heroes.

Here's a little more on him and if I whetted your appetite for info google him... while we still have time.

Almost eighty years before the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Ricardo Flores Magón—revolutionary, anarchist, labor organizer and expatriate nationalist—challenged the prevailing social order of both Mexico and the United States. Magón predicted that if Mexican workers failed to organize and shake off the yoke of capitalism, the nation would soon be dominated by foreign economic interests. And American workers, he warned, would find their firms and factories employing low-wage laborers in Mexico. Magón's message: "Mexico for Mexicans."
Organized labor, however, would never gain a strong foothold in Mexico. Although the Constitution of 1917 guaranteed the right of workers to organize and strike, government restrictions, a historically unstable economy and meddling by the American interests (including the IWW and the AFL), combined to limit the effectiveness of Mexican unions. "Mexico for Mexicans," or working-class nationalism, was and is little more than rhetoric.

 

don't have too good a grasp on economics, do you.

 

Nope I think money and all it emcompasses is shit. People kill and die for it.

My point is a man almost 100 years ago foresaw what was to come.

If you care to enlighten by all means add to the discussion. I always welcome it.

 

First of all, NAFTA puts no limits on unionization. Unions tend to dislike the agreement because many Union heavy industries (ie: Steel, etc) tend to be heavily subsidized, and thus uncompetitive. There are often many job losses in these industries after a free trade agreement. They also fear competition with foreign labour with lower standards.

Secondly, foreign ownership isn't usually a bad thing.

Third, Mexico's failure to enforce its own labour laws has more to do with Vincente Fox and previous Mexican governments than America.

I oppose NAFTA, but the arguments given are fucking ridiculous.

 

NAFTA rocks.

 

it has its good and bad points for every country.

good for america - we can't stop selling you oil.

bad for america - we can't rationally ever sell you any freshwater.

 

Thats all spooner ever says - his threads on the other hand are brilliant masterpieces of academic excellence about hitting people and about what his buddy threw up at a party.
Ignore him - in fact I'm about to put all his threads on ignore and all his posts
Cuz thats all that meat heads like that are about - hit and run so they never have to show anyone what shitferbrains really means

infact this is what someone else said about him in another thread

sorry about that but...
my reply is that it stands to reason he may have called "Mexico for the Mexicans" but somewhere along the line - whoever leads a country is going to have to deal with capitalists. I think revolutionaries have long since dismissed the idea of national revolution in favour of a global anti-capitalist movement. Idealism doesnt suck, but it is all too simplistic to think a single instance of revolution will bring about permanent change - Russia - France and now China. As far as NAFTA goes - it was always the only solution - If you cant beat em - join em

 

Character attacks - why do you give a shit how I spend my time when I'm not in the classrom?

Might want to brush up on your logical fallacies as well as your economics.

Also before using terms like "hit and run" you might want to realize I have more posts than anybody in this thread.

 

Oh I just switched you off for a while there -
Every post you make just says "dont have a good grasp" blah blah
WTF is that about - you enter conversation where someone is trying
to assert a proposition and then ignore the logical position
of the argument to belittle their intellect. If you think you're
too smart for people here just ignore them
theres a lot of difference between you and an intellect, sunshine.
For one the fact that you post a lot is no indication that you actually said
anything. In fact you are one of that rare breed that has nothing to say, and says it. When you finish tossing yourself off and actually look around you I mean walkin down the street. perhaps you will realise youre one of the lamers everybody wishes would get a brain. You fucked a lot of people off with dickhead arrogance and the jerk picture you use about sums it up
I'm blankin you out by putting you on ignore forever

 

The tragedy here isn't that you put me on an ignore list, but that you took me off.

As for the personal attacks, well, I could care less about your opinion of me. As an aside, however, I never said anything terrible about the OP, yet somehow you self-righteously attack my character, picture, and self-esteem (still unaffected on all three counts). The irony isn't lost on me.

The original poster is merely using the US as a scapegoat for Mexico's failed attempt at a self-sustaining system of capital accumulation. The post was so blatantly false he's lucky he got any response at all... And he certainly proved his vast knowledge on the subject with witticisms like this: "Nope I think money and all it emcompasses is shit. People kill and die for it." Especially considering economics is hardly defined as the study of money.

It isn't my business to teach basic macroeconomics to anonymous people over the internet.

 

The world will be a better place for your staying out of macroeconomics - leave it to the professionals. I see you need a lesson on the subject anyway.
The US being the dominant force on the continent has no intention of competing there for any resources it needs and actively campaigns and colludes with its European partners in a price fixing war against allcomers outside of USA and Europe - the fact that Europe is in competition with the USA on other matters is beside the point. The closest ally to the US is Europe. Now, The problem is that Mexico has a basis of bargaining with the USA because it borders the USA. The US economy must partially be based on that fact. Geography being a component of economics. It gives Mexico leverage in the USA that the US economists wished would disappear. It is in the interests of the USA to keep Mexico poor since the richer mexico becomes - the less cheap labour there is for the US economy and the bigger the leveraging is for the Mexican government. It is a fact that the US will use any tactic to keep itself afloat and that is one of them.
Its not about Mexicans V's Americans - its about the tactics that the US uses as the biggest economic force in the world to keep Mexico from having too big say (OR ANY - IF POSSIBLE) over US policy and Economy.
My point being that it suits those gangsters in mexico and the whitehouse to break the back of organised labour in Mexico in order to preserve a status quo - the US needs the cheap labour of Mexico and that is a fact - WHY SHOULD A MEXICAN POLITICIAN CARE? Because they are well fed by the USA. Its the workers who starve - not the aristocratic pimps in government

 

People kill and die for: food, drink, women, men, power, sex, religion, and plenty of other shit. At least make an attempt at supporting your ideas.

Also, in regards to the person being discussed... much ado about [nobody].

 

You talk about not making character attacks yet you use them anyways.

Pot calling the kettle black?

 

Perhaps - Toketrip - you just tripped out too much and missed the point - cuz now youre doing the same thing Besides which we will see how spooner deals with my post above this shall we

 

Spouting off some half-assed home-spun version of the World-System Theory isn't teaching me a lesson in IPE, its taking a paranoid Marxist conjecture as fact.

And even with the ease of transportation, Mexico is barely competitive as it is (vs China/Vietnam/etc in terms of the cost of labour). Increasing those costs through unionization isn't going to help people in Meixco - it's going to leave them jobless. I'm pro-unionization, but low-intensity manufacturing is hardly going to be its fertile crescent.

I'm still waiting for you to add me to your ignore list. Your idle "threats" to do it aren't exactly hurting my feelings.

 

The NAFTA Agreement and other trade laws is exactly that, an agreement between two cuntries for mutual benefit but the truth is the only ones the benefit are the cream of the crop. The higher ups who are sucking off the blood of the peoples of each of these nations in order to keep their regimes of power in line.

I am out there in the trenches with my brothers and sisters everyday. I ride next to them on the bus, or stand next to them in the library, or see them in the grocery stores or see them begging for just a little bit more so they can make ends meet. I see them turning on each other because they are all frustrated with the circumstances in which they have been dealt. And I listen and listen to the hate that they put forth. The hate that has consumed them much as it has consumed some of you. The only difference is I try to offer compassion and try to give them hope instead of blindly spitting venom back at them. I have held the hand of people who live in fear. I try not to live my life by just the parameters of my simple upbringing and realize that life is indeed best savored from a parallax view. That everyone's path is has been set on a seperate one from mine and everytime my life intersects with another I try to gain a little more from that persons perspective. That is why I opened this discussion for enlightenment because I know that I do not posess all the answers but obviously there are others who will always feel the need to pawn off their hate on others because they haven't come to that crossroads yet. That's all right because even those who are consumed by text book formats, or anger or even just unripened by youth will have experienced enough of life one day and will not be the same as they once were. Then possibly we will be able to have a conversation.

Until then peace...