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Global Economics
Papers presented at the South-North
Exchange 2006 Conference on Free Market
Fundamentaliism, a project of LatCrit, Inc., (Latina and Latino
Critical
Legal Theory Conferences), May 18-20, 2006, Bogota, Colombia, a production of Universidad de los Andes and Seattle University School of Law, have been published by SEATTLE UNIVERSITY JOURNAL FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE.
The Globalizing Economy and the Divisive Immigration Debate
Although there has been an increased focus on Mexican immigration to the United States, Mexicans have been migrating north for better opportunities since our nation was formed. When the U.S. gained control of the Southwest, the Mexican population that was living there became U.S. citizens. The expanding nation needed workers and many looked to the Mexican-American population already living within its borders. This use of Mexican labor not only laid a foundation for employers, but it also established a resource for working poor Mexicans as they traveled north to earn a better wage and hopefully a better life. Over the years, U.S. and Mexican public policy has furthered immigration and the use of Mexican labor by U.S. employers. The historical foundation for immigration was solidified with the passage of NAFTA in 1994. Supporters of NAFTA argued that it would bring more jobs to Mexico and slow immigration. But the proliferation of U.S. factories only furthered the atmosphere for exploitation of workers on the Mexican side of the border, did not deliver on increased prosperity for the migrant laborer, and drove more Mexicans to seek a living wage north of the border. As the nation’s politicians look to “fix the immigration problem,” it is important to understand the history, politics, and economics behind the process. U.S. corporations earn profits off of the labor of working class Mexicans who want a job that will allow them to feed, clothe, and educate their children. Possibly the flow of illegal immigration would stop at the doorstep of the U.S. if the wages and working conditions in the maquiladora jobs that lure the migrants from the South allowed them to care for their families. Most of them do not. This struggle and the circumstances that created their lives of contestation are what continue to drive so many Mexican migrant laborers to follow in the footsteps of the millions before them, who have historically traveled north for a better life.
Forthcoming Topics on the Relationship between free trade and immigration
Historical Context for Mexican Immigration
Push and Pull for Labor and a Better Way of Life
Immigration Policy over the Years, U.S. and Mexico
Globalization’s Role in Immigration
NAFTA’s Effect on Immigration-Free Trade
Immigration’s Impact on Family
Immigration’s Impact on Gender
Creating an Overlooked Underclass in the United States
Closed Borders vs. Open Borders
Trade and Migration
Congressional Initiatives
State Initiatives
Sustainable Ways to Address Immigration
Migrants, Border Crossings and Human Rights
Fair Trade as a Viable Alternative
CAFTA-The Outbreak of Free Trade
We welcome your feedback! Send your comments to: Editor, WOB, Inc.
Articles
The Global
Economy: Policy and Protest
1.
Maude Barlow, "What
is the FTAA?," (pdf) Council of Canadians, 2000
2.
Maude Barlow, "Summing
Up the Summit in Quebec," (pdf) April, 2001
Books
Michael
Hardt and Antonio Negri, EMPIRE (Harvard Press 2000)
Quote from the authors’ preface:
Empire
is materializing before our very eyes. Over the past several decades,
as colonial regimes were overthrown and then precipitously after
the Soviet barriers to the capitalist world market finally collapsed,
we have witnessed an irresistible and irreversible globalization
of economic and cultural exchanges. Along with the global
market and global circuits of production has emerged a global order,
a new logic and structure of rule – in short a new form of
sovereignty. Empire is the political subject that effectively
regulates these global exchanges, the sovereign power that governs
the world.
Lori
Wallach, Patrick Woodall, Ralph Nader, Whose Trade Organization?:
A Comprehensive Guide to the World Trade Organization, Second Edition
FILMS
The
Corporation (documentary)
a film by Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott and Joel Bakan,
(2003)
Website:
www.thecorporation.com/
Film
review: http://smartpei.typepad.com/robert_patersons_weblog/2004/03/the_corporation.html
Summary: A powerful 2.5 hour examination
of the origins of the legal fiction of corporate personhood.
The authors propose an understanding of abusive corporate behavior
as one might examine the distorted thinking of a criminal psychopath.
Viewers come to understand not only why some of the worlds largest
multinational corporations have become so big, powerful and seemingly
immune to accountability, but also why consumers need to be looking
for ways to take back control of the monstrous unregulated growth
of some corporations whose existence is defined by a voracious appetite
for new markets to exploit and new products to sell with no concern
whatsoever for their effect on our health, natural resources, environment
or the well-being of our descendants.
BULLSHIT
(2005) featuring Indian anti-globalization activist Vandana Shiva
http://www.cinemaguild.com/catalog/catalog_new_releases.htm
Click here for summary and to order the film BULLSHIT:
http://smartpei.typepad.com/robert_patersons_weblog/2004/03/the_corporation.html |
