We may finally be seeing the end of corporate globalization

[Oscar]

We may finally be seeing the end of corporate globalization

[ http://rabble.ca/columnists/2016/05/we- ... balization ]

By Murray Dobbin | May 27, 2016

At the height of the battle over the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (FTA), the Business Council on National Issues -- the 160 largest public corporations and the biggest pushers of the deal -- took out full-page ads promising it would bring "more jobs, better jobs." It was intended to counter the effective campaign of opponents who warned Canadians that tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs would be lost. Opponents won the hearts-and-minds battle but lost the 1988 election on the issue, thus making Canada and the U.S. "free trade" guinea pigs. Hundreds of such deals have been signed since, in spite of the fact that the critics were right: Canada lost some 334,000 jobs between 1988 and 1994 as a direct result. [ http://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/ ... _nafta.pdf ]

Since 1988, promoters of these investment protection agreements have held sway in large part because of massive media support. But almost 30 years after the first experiment, there are signs that, finally, citizens around the world are beginning to ask the uncomfortable question: just who do governments govern for? Regrettably, that question is being asked more in the EU and the U.S. than it is in Canada. Nonetheless, opposition to such deals in these two powerhouse economies could save us from more of them -- specifically the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Canada's proposed deal with the EU: the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). If the U.S.-EU deal (the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership or TTIP) fails, CETA is unlikely to survive.

So-called trade deals empower transnational corporations by radically compromising the nation-state's capacity for democratic governance. This undermining of democracy is accomplished in large part through the investor-state provisions which allow corporations to directly sue government for profits lost due to environmental, health or other legislation. Governments sign these agreements enthusiastically promising jobs and growth. But, while it has taken almost two generations, millions of American workers simply no longer believe the rhetoric.

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Once members of the political elite begin to question the high priests of free trade, the spell is broken, and all sorts of alternative political narratives present themselves. It takes an accumulation of unlikely suspects breaking with the consensus before that happens and we have already seen some high-profile defectors from the TPP [ http://rabble.ca/columnists/2015/11/tru ... s-test-tpp ] -- including Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz, economist Jeffrey Sachs and in Canada RIM co-founder Jim Balsillie. At first the Teflon seemed to hold, but there is always a time lag when it comes to cultural change and their interventions are still playing out.

In Canada, regrettably, Balsillie isn't likely to be joined any time soon by conventional members of our corporate elite. It is the nature of ideology that if the medicine doesn't work, the solution is to increase the dose. Unless more Canadians speak out on these investment protection agreements and get behind their counterparts in the U.S. and EU, the Liberal government will keep prescribing the same medicine.

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Murray Dobbin has been a journalist, broadcaster, author and social activist for 40 years. He writes rabble's State of the Nation column, which is also found at The Tyee.

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