Debating Myself

Montana Governor Brian Schweizter speaking in Washington D.C. in May 2006. I just stumbled across this video and had to share it. It just reminds me what I like about Montana voters and Montana politics, and what is often misunderstood about us. Montanans vote for the “right” thing when they are told honestly and directly what is at stake. With some honest talk and innovative policies Montana is doing the best it has for the past 12 years or so. Other Democratic politicians in the west should listen closely.

This is part one of a multi-part series addressing the issue of free trade and the arguments used against it. In this section I take on the historical protection of manufacturing jobs by opponents of free trade. Future sections will address environmental concerns, concerns of 3rd world exploitation, and an honest appraisal of the evidence in favor of and against free trade.

The recent debate about free trade bubbling up in Montana politics is the perfect opportunity to discuss this highly misunderstood issue. Montana Gubernatorial hopefuls Don Pogreba and Jason Neiffer have criticized Max Baucus, Montana’s free trading senior Democratic senator, as supporting a policy of:

Enhancing the bottom line of multinational corporations who operate above the law and whose profits rarely make it to the hands of workers who produce them? Sane fiscal policy.

Though they criticize Senator Baucus for misrepresenting opponents to free trade, the above quote shows that their campaign has also misrepresented the arguments in favor of free trade as well as missing an opportunity to move the Democratic party forward in its thinking on this issue.

This is not surprising–ever election is marred by a consistent misunderstanding of free trade. Politicians on the left use American fears about job security, the environment, and exploitation of the 3rd world to frame free trade as an exploitative and hurtful practice–often favoring protectionism as a solution. At the same time the right unilaterally supports free trade arguing that pure free trade is the only trade policy to have on the basis of economic freedom–even if it is sometimes exploitative or imperfect.

Of course not all of those on the left are against free trade–Senator Baucus is a Democrat–and some bloggers on the left, Jay Stevens over at Left in the West in particular, are actually supportive of reopening the discussion of free trade and searching for a middle ground. I think all Democrats would be well advised to welcome a discussion of how to:

encourage trade, but… make sure our trade agreements are fair, that they benefit American workers and businesses, not just multinational corporations looking for cheap labor and a way to trample over workers’ rights and avoid environmental standards.

Before we can move forward in our thinking on free trade we need to look at the historical basis for the Left’s rejection of free trade. Pogreba and Neiffer trot out this historical justification that still drives left opposition to free trade today:

concern about stagnant or even declining wages for American workers who struggle to find manufacturing jobs

This objection is based on a vision of the world centered on human intensive labor and wide scale industrial production. The US Government publication “Outline of the US Economy” provides a really good description of the diminishing role of labor in the traditional manufacturing sense:

Manufacturing has declined in relative importance, and the service sector has grown. More and more workers hold white-collar office jobs rather than unskilled, blue-collar factory jobs. Newer industries, meanwhile, have sought highly skilled workers who can adapt to continuous changes produced by computers and other new technologies.

If you want numbers to prove it, enjoy:

Service-related industries accounted for 24.4 million jobs, or 59 percent of non-farm employment, in 1946. By late 1999, that sector had grown to 104.3 million jobs, or 81 percent of non-farm employment. Conversely, the goods-producing sector — which includes manufacturing, construction, and mining — provided 17.2 million jobs, or 41 percent of non-farm employment in 1946, but grew to just 25.2 million, or 19 percent of non-farm employment, in late 1999.

America is no longer a manufacturing economy. Manufacturing jobs are protected out of a nostalgia for the hayday of workers’ movements, and having been the focus of labor activism for decades, the compensation for these jobs is artificially inflated. Resorting to protectionism to hold on to this distorted version of the labor market is damaging for a number of reasons…

(more…)

Only the most obsessive political junkies may have noticed it, but this week the opening shot was fired in what could be another great democratic primary race. That’s right, I’m talking about the Montana Gubernatorial Primary. It is already attracting some attention in the blogosphere…

The storyline is eerily similar to the national race–an upstart ticket taking on the democratic establishment hoping to alter the national conversation about a number of issues, grounded in grassroots campaigning, and supported by a very slick online presence. Yes, the Neiffer/Pogreba ticket has a unique opportunity to make some noise, even if it is just a little, in what was promising to be an open and shut nomination for incumbent (and widely approved) Governor Brian Schweitzer (I’m a big Schweitzer fan myself…)

Neiffer and Pogreba know they face long odds, but it seems their hearts are really in the right place. As the Billings Gazette story on the two reports:

They are especially interested in offering their views on education, environmental and energy policy.

“We’re not overwhelmingly optimistic there is going to be a great discussion of education in a general election campaign,” Pogreba said.

If you check out their website, also found in the Blogroll, you can get a good idea of the kinds of innovative ideas these two stand for. If they could push even some of their ideas about education onto the state agenda Montana students would be much better off. Why shouldn’t a couple of dedicated teachers make a political statement and push their own ideas onto the agenda–outside of the traditional channels of the teacher’s union and Office of Public Instruction?

There are of course many naysayers. Some argue that these two are just running to allow Brian Schweitzer to raise more money in the primary season by facing a contested primary.

Doubtful. These are two guys who are passionate about teaching and with strong political ideas about how to improve the state of education in Montana–they just happened to be savvy enough (or perhaps crazy enough) to jump into active politics in an effort to actually get something changed.

Kudos to them. Can’t wait to see how the primary race unfolds.

For more, be sure to check out their long running blog on politics in Montana and the wider world…