Is it possible to be a libertarian and skeptical of globalization? (WOT)

[TheGlobalizer]

This is very much what I'm getting at. While I agree that NAFTA was created with the best of intentions (well, for the most part), and indeed probably advanced some very liberal causes, it was also supported by conservative businessmen who stood to gain from its implementation. And while its impact in the purely social realm has probably been to lessen antagonism between people of different nationalities, its economic effects more than mitigate this benefit.

I dislike corporatism and favoritism in the economy. Some others would disagree with me, but I strongly believe you cannot have a liberated society if the tax burden is lifted only for some but not for all, on the basis of policy implementation.

While I agree, NAFTA has some very favorable downstream impacts on cross-border trade among small businesses.  They have been (in my opinion) impermissibly burdened by US border control activities, however.  (I've seen more cars with Canadian license plates than Mexican license plates in my 6 months in New Mexico -- that's just stupid.)

[TheGlobalizer]

Do you have any proposals that could rectify this situation, especially directly along the border?

The biggest thing, from what I've seen (I'm not a small business owner) is relaxing some of the strange reasons the US has thrown up for limiting access to the US roads by Mexican trucks.  It comes off to me as overt protectionism.  For instance, despite NAFTA's provision for free movement of goods in trade, a Mexican company cannot deliver its goods directly to a city such as Albuquerque without using intermediaries or US trucks.  This policy does not stop US-owned maquiladoras from engaging in their sweatshopping, but it does limit Mexican businesses from being able to freely sell across the border, which was, by the way, the whole effing point (for Mexico, anyway).

That a lot of Mexican goods are still sold in Albuquerque speaks to the cost benefits of allowing Mexican goods into the US.

(Personally, by the way, I'd like to pay less for my imported Mexican Coca-Colas.  They taste infinitely better than the US-produced Cokes that use corn-subsidy-goo instead of pure sugar.)

[TheGlobalizer]

I agree. And I would add that it makes sense to me (for a right-libertarian at least, even though I wouldn't disagree with the analysis) to include the free movement of wage workers under the descriptor of "goods in trade". What I think a lot of people don't understand is that labor is a commodity like any other under the present system, but it's treated as something special - not because it's held in high regard by those who do so, but for the base motive of not wanting to compete with other forms of the good from other places.

That would solve much of the problem, I agree, especially in those dusty south Texas border towns. A broader concern, however, is this: a lot of native workers are negatively impacted by high migration levels into their areas, because they have not learned the skills necessary to compete. It's these people I think would benefit most from my 'co-operative individualism', as it would help to insulate them from the current of cultural and economic change long enough to adjust themselves to it.

I wouldn't go so far as to equate labor with goods (and NAFTA doesn't either), but I do think an intelligible migrant worker policy is desperately needed.  I wouldn't be in love with government programs to support global trade-driven retraining of affected Americans, but it certainly wouldn't be the greatest evil perpetrated by our government, either.  :-)

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Agreed. My girlfriend is Puerto Rican, but they do their Coke the exact same way. And it's amazing.

Funny how the official line from Coca-Cola is "there's no difference".  Yeah...that's why Mexican Coke outsells American Coke in the (heavily Hispanic) South Valley area of Albuquerque, despite the higher unit cost.