“I always vote but it doesn’t seem to make a difference. What else can I do?” That was the question of a gray-haired lady who took time on a sunny Saturday afternoon to hear a senator from North Dakota talk about making globalization more fair.
Unfortunately Senator Byron Dorgan didn’t give answers. In Seattle to promote his new book Take This Job and Ship It, he told a few dozen people sad tales of workers who had lost their jobs when companies shifted production abroad. An example: he said he’s outraged that Huffy bicycles are now made in China by workers who are paid 33 cents an hour while American taxpayers are stuck paying the pensions of former American workers.
Dorgan wrote the book because he’s frustrated that Republicans in Congress control trade policy. He rightly blamed the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its corporate backers for laws that ignore the concerns of workers. But will populist anger without solutions win Democrats votes?
Obviously there are lots of losers in the current form of globalization. Yet in Cascadia, the most trade-dependent region on the continent, people want to hear how to make the system work better. Leaders need to explain concrete steps that can help more people benefit, things like better educating Americans (and Canadians!) while improving environmental and worker standards overseas.
In a nod to Seattle’s reason for being, several times Dorgan said “I support trade. I’m not against trade. But it has to be fair trade.” But that’s a classic canard of protectionists. In fact, Dorgan voted for the 2002 Farm Bill, which unfairly doles out billions of taxpayer dollars to support prices of U.S. crops so farmers in poorer countries can’t compete. Their only choice is to shift to cut-rate manufacturing — an opportunity corporations eagerly provide.
Dorgan’s book actually includes some solid ideas (tax policy that discourages exporting jobs and pollution, for example). If the book reaches readers who are brainwashed by pro-globalization cheerleaders like Tom Friedman it may add to the policy debate. But Dorgan wasted his opportunity in Seattle, leaving yet another old lady and many like her worried about globalization with no idea what to do about it.
