New Economic Policy for the Left

Despite the non-partisan nature of this blog, James Galbraith's article in the March 5 edition of The Nation was mindblowing, turning upside down the policies being advocated by Washington's democratically oriented economics crew that I've mentioned in a previous post (The Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution). But here is a glimpse.

Galbraith: "The facts are clear: NAFTA is a done deal, and China is a success story we have to live with. Progressives need a trade narrative that moves past these two issues. Broadly, this means accepting manufactured imports and dropping the idea that we can control--or that it matters much--who assembles television sets or stitches shirts. Standards to guard against flagrant abuses such as child and prison labor are fine, but it's an illusion to think they will, or should, dent the flow of goods from China. A progressive trade agenda should focus, instead, on building stronger world markets for our exports, and in ways that do not trample on the needs and rights of poor people in poor countries. That should provide plenty of room for future fights with free-trade absolutists."