Much has been said and written on NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. As the economy lurches into recession after recession, some are selling NAFTA as the be all, end all, a solution to the increasing cycles of bad economic times. Economics an intimidating, confounding science, if ever there was one, does follow certain principles, among them, that capital follows the profit margin. Always, always.
The NAFTA backers claim the pact will provide many new jobs because of new business opportunities in Mexico and elsewhere. There may be jobs, but they will pay a bear pittance, and the businesses that remain behind will bludgeon their workers with the threat of relocation to the low paying vistas south of the border. Indeed, it is already happening. Capital’s track to below the Rio Grande has created an ocean of maquiladores hugging the U.S. border, where goods are produced by Mexican workers paid the barest peso only to be shipped north for sale to norteamericanos at regular prices, meaning ultimately a bigger margin of profit for the manufacturer with less for laborers.
NAFTA means an intensification of this trend. NAFTA means lower wages for workers. NAFTA is a political creation of U.S. and multinational capital, and thus designed to provide corporate interests with a larger pool for production, which Mexico obviously offers with lower wages, ditto, and also with dramatically lessened environmental regulations.
Think of it this way, if you were a business producing widgets and had an opportunity to produce them by non-union, bargain-basement, low-paid workers with no social security, no workers comp, no OSHA. such as it is, no EPA, such as it is, and still, could sell your widgets at the same or even higher prices, would you do it? That’s the question pondered by many a manager, board member and director of US business today and in the harsh world of the economy, it is a force greater to capital than gravity itself.
NAFTA pulls the plug out of the tub and quickens the economic whoosh down the drain for U.S. labor. To be sure, maquiladores represent substantial investments and job opportunities for Mexican workers who are quite willing to work for meager, by U.S. standards, wages provided by U.S. business, but Mexico’s gain will mean U.S. losses. Even given the far fetched possibility that the U.S. Congress will reject NAFTA, the inexorable southern flow will not end for no Congress, nor any other purely political entity can, or will, block the drive of capital for its highest return, a “better” bottom line. Consider any politician’s stand on NAFTA, and you will know whether he supports the rights of those who labor, or of those who boss and profit from labor. From death row, this is Mumia Abu-Jaml.
These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio.