by John R., Jr. MacArthur
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Product Description
The Selling of "Free Trade" shows how Washington works to accomplish political or economic goals, even when confronted with widespread popular opposition. John R. MacArthur chronicles the brutal and expensive campaign in 1993 that led to passage of the poorly understood, highly controversial law creating the North American Free Trade Agreement.
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Average Customer Review:
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Free trade is not really free, 2008-01-25
Bill Clinton cites numerous pieces of legislation as part of his legacy; one of which was the passage of NAFTA in 1993. This book offers a bottoms-up view of NAFTA, its push, its passage, and its effects in two communities, one in Mexico and one in the US. The book begins and ends with the community in the US, a Swingline factory in NYC to be exact. In between, the book analyzes the origins of NAFTA, and how the Clinton presidency got it thru Congress against popular opinion in the US, both among the public at large, and within the ranks of both political parties. This middle part of the book is told in chronological order, and covers all the major characters involved, such as Ross Perot, Al Gore, Lee Iacocca, Richard Gephardt, Bill Daley, and Mexican President Salinas.
After reading this book, one gets the idea that NAFTA was essentially a treaty between an overlord, the US, and its colony, Mexico, in which the former gets protection of corporate assets in the latter's territory. In exchange, the latter gets a lot of low-paying jobs, perfect for its lowly-educated workforce. One also gets the idea that during the 1990's, the Democratic Party essentially became a socially-liberal version of the GOP; both answered to big business at the end of the day.
The author does a good job of interviewing common people, individuals who worked in factories that were directly affected by NAFTA. This added a human touch to a subject that can be quite dry. I only give this book four stars instead of five because for a book about NAFTA, very little text is actually spent thoroughly explaining this document and what is contained inside of it.
0 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
 Too Much Attitude, Too Little Analysis, 2006-10-27
This book is an interesting if super-polemical account of the political maneuvering and PR spin that surrounded passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993. As MacArthur notes, NAFTA was not about trade, but about making Mexico safe for U.S. investors seeking cheap labor. The central irony of his heavily ironic book -- sarcasm oozes from almost every page -- is that a Democratic administration ended up in alliance with Republicans and business interests to push a trade deal opposed by labor unions, a core Democratic constituency.
MacArthur interviewed a lot of key NAFTA players, and his book is quite good on Washington infighting. On trade and economics, however, it is terrible. It does no economic analysis, it doesn't discuss the details of NAFTA (instead, MacArthur lazily refers the reader to "specialist literature"), and it caricatures pro-free trade economists as dupes or sellouts. It is also riddled with errors -- anyone who thinks that the 301 law was designed to address dumping in domestic markets has no business writing a book on trade agreements.
Bottomline: the book is nasty and fun but not recommended for anyone who wants to do serious research on NAFTA.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Selling of America, 2006-06-29
NAFTA became a blue-print for exporting jobs all over the world. It allows corrupt governments everywhere to exploit the poor for the benefit of the world trade organization (WTO) and the wealthy of these countries.
This book is an example of excellent reporting. MacArthur takes a small subject--the fate of the Swingline staple factory in New York and shows you how a company cut its labor costs by moving to a bordertown in Mexico. This factory once was the first job off the boat for thousands of immigrants. Now, it is the modern equivalence of the workhouse in places like Mexico. There a corrupt government threw its peasants off their land offering them a brutal choice: be exploited by corporations in Mexico or take a chance at a new life in America.
What shocked me was how in such a world as we are creating, friends come in strange packages while your enemies come at you with warm hands and friendly smiles. Bill Clinton, to the delight of conservatives, pushed NAFTA through Congress. The opposition: a lonely, odd, short guy from, of all places, Texas, by the name of Ross Perot. "Can you hear that sucking sound," was his cry throughout his tour of America against NAFTA. We did not listen. Instead, we bought Bill Clinton and Gore, who was the front man for this PR campaign, based on their supposed liberal values. We got took.
Read this book and find out how. I took off a few points because the flow dragged a little but otherwise, a great book --- MacArthur made the Conservative hit list.
Please rate this review. Thanks.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
 The silent majority, 2004-10-03
This book had no recommendations, no dust jacket, and no introduction to the qualifications of the author. The only reason I picked it up out of the library was because I am currenty a student of International Business and Global Economics.Our group assigment is to pursue a debate upon free trade in general, for the opposition.
For it's treatment of trade theory, especially Smith and Ricardo,I thought MacArthur picked up a salient point...why in the modern world of technology and global trade are thinking individuals (for example...academics?) silently allowing a group of self-interested multi-national corporations to devour and destroy what took western societies, not just capitalists, hundreds of years to attain?
Namely, a worker-protected environment, minimum wage laws, and government regulations to prevent exploitation of labour? Vanishing due to greed. The same old greed that could be scientifically theorized upon more than two hundred years
ago, during the ages of mercantilism and comparative advantage.
Why no new theories on how to maintain worker rights?
MacArthur identifies the players in American politics, the benefits assumed and trade among all dealers in the free trade debate, and spends as much time as is necessary to capture the attention of the reader. Canada and Mexico are mere pawns here in a game the Americans play much better than many nations.
Thus clear causes and effects of the support of free trade in these other nations should be reviewed in numerous other texts.
The points he picks up the best include the clauses in chapter eleven preventing privatisation of Mexican-held American assets, the collusion of the mass media, the deification of Salinas, etc.
The question he raises with the greatest irony, "How could such a trade policy be permitted without minimum standards of environmental and labour regulations in the developing
country, as was required in the EU of Portugal and Greece?"
Finally, the idea should be about creating wider consumer markets of products, which due to this trade deal, almost certainly will never happen in Mexico. The experts still
remain silent about the after-effects, research classified
into documents that claim the success of the project will
take fifteen to twenty years to adequately assess...waiting
for those accountable to pass away? Not a great sucking sound, but a slow, persistent dripping sound.
Now I know why one of my co-workers in the desert was from Georgetown University. Idealism dies pretty fast in
MacArthur's lens upon Free Trade. An enlightening read.
5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
A Good History of NAFTA, 2002-01-25
Chapter One tells of the history of the Swingline stapler business from 1920s to 1997. This still profitable business was shut down when production was moved to Mexico. Computers resulted in a great increase in the use of cut papers, and this needed more staples to fasten them together.
Chapter Two quotes the David Ricardo statement of "comparative advantage" (p.71). Isn't this just a simple argument created to support a point of view, and not reality? It doesn't address shipping costs, or other facts. Hardware and other goods CAN be manufactured in America and Poland, or France and Portugal. This example masks the political decisions hidden in his argument. Page 75 quotes Ricardo again, and notes it was false when he wrote it; another created argument. Pages 78-79 repeat the praises for President Salinas, then. He unilaterally lowered Mexican tariffs to allow US exports to gain market share; the book says this wrecked the Mexican economy, and Salinas fled the country to avoid arrest for murder and money laundering! The net effect was to loot and impoverish the country.
Page 95 speaks of the Republicans and Democrats as if they were real things, and not just names for a collection of special interests that create oratory to advance their aims. Page 97 discusses the rational of lowered tariffs: to fight "communism" by importing foreign goods! The fact that those who profited by financing and merchandising these imports also influenced government policy is just another coincidence. Pages 99-125 tell of the intrigue behind the passing of NAFTA (like other special interest legislation). These pages are one of the most important part of the book!
Chapter Three investigates the details of the NAFTA agreement. It starts with the candidature of William Clinton, a "master of two-dimensional obfuscation" ("like Woodrow Wilson") on p.143. Clinton's attraction was that, however flawed, he could win and the politicians preferred him over a loser, however pure. Clinton supported NAFTA because that was where the big money was (p.150). Also, it would not give Bush an issue when Clinton was ahead in the polls.
Chapter Four deals with the politics of passing NAFTA with Democratic Party votes. President Clinton sought the help of the Republican Party and the Fortune 500 (p.199). Why? "Politics is self-interest. Simply put, it's complete self-interest. The fact of the matter is, they'll get in bed with anyone" (p.201). Pages 17-8 tell how a "grass roots" campaign is manufactured. Pages 218-9 tell how a "grass tops" campaign is run: find important people in a congressional district and get them to repeat your requests in person. with a lower tariff on Mexican imports, the lost revenue means higher taxes for Americans whether or not they still have a job (p.232).
"The fact of the matter is they won NAFTA because of money, because of gifts, because of special interests, goodies, and everything else. They did not necessarily win the debate" (p.275). Since then the number of manufacturing jobs have declined; NAFTA helped to export jobs, not goods (p.282). Pages 285-6 lists the bad things that happened after NAFTA's ratification. Page 291 says the abolition of the Mexican communal land system (like the English Encclosure Acts) drove millions off the land, and some across the border; an increasing pool of cheap labor.
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