![[Important] We need to start talking about the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership soon](https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/CEsdhjxYVd.jpg){kind=link}
Look. I'm not trying to start another pointless struggle session. Far from that, I want each and every one of us to confront this most strange attempt at multilateralism by two of our favourite existing socialisms.
There's no substantial article on the environment. Not a single word on climate or pollution. And nothing on labour issues.
I get that the whole thing is brand new and the member countries will probably amend to add more to the document in later stages.
But now is the point the heads of governments go back to their respective legislative body for ratification. Again, nothing on labour, the environment or the climate.
I want us Chapos to confront the likelihood that existing socialist experiments are faltering, even abandoning, a key promise of socialism to workers: reducing work hours for more leisure time. That, and no idea how trade is going to connect to the climate crisis.
The lack of climate provisions is somewhat understandable. There is already a major international climate agreement in place, and (for worse) that reflects as far as the international community is willing to go at this point. The counter is that China should have used the allure of this deal to push better emission reduction targets, but who knows, maybe that was a complete non-starter at negotiations because the issue was considered settled via the 2016 Paris Agreement.
The lack of labor protections is far more damning in my eyes. We know the free trade playbook at this point: outsource production from countries with stronger labor protections to countries with weaker ones, kneecapping labor in the former while further exploiting later in the latter. An major economic power that really gives a shit about workers should at least include some labor protections in an agreement like this to eliminate sweatshops in whatever countries end up handling production. That's not even socialism, that's just giving workers a modicum of insulation from free market capitalism.
That said, it's possible China is doing the best it can, and that scenario should be mentioned as well. China has no way to force anyone to adopt improved labor protections, and asking for those protections may have been a non-starter. If those were off the table from the beginning (through no fault of China's), wouldn't this still be an improvement, if only on anti-imperialist grounds? Undermining the economic superiority of the U.S. is good, full stop. Anything on top of that is gravy. And if you're going to have an international trade environment dominated by neoliberalism, isn't it an improvement that more of the benefits of that flow to China instead of the U.S.? One is doing a lot less military aggression, is improving the material conditions of its workers much more substantially, and is taking climate change much more seriously.
I found this line interesting - "Undermining the economic superiority of the U.S. is good, full stop. Anything on top of that is gravy."
I would say the minimum we need from a neoliberal trade deal to even consider not outright criticizing it to hell is that it undermine the economic superiority of the U.S. Now, to demand even neutrality, let alone support (critical or not), would require substantive measures on things OP mentioned i.e., climate, labour etc (such as restricting copyright).
We criticize Kamala Harris for establishing "a student loan debt forgiveness program for Pell Grant recipients who start a business that operates for three years in disadvantaged communities." But then we support what is basically that useless on a bigger scale. Neolibs say her Pell Grants plan is genuinely good, and SuccDems say atleast it'll help some people. We on the left are supposed to "tell it like it is" (just read Marx's criticisms of his fellow leftists - anarchists or socialists) but then hide behind "at least it hurts the US".
But anyways, I don't wanna make this a struggle session on China or whatever. Left unity and all that, right?
It's certainly a low bar to clear. At the same time, it's impossible to overstate the harmfulness of U.S. economic superiority and the potential benefits of rolling that back. We can't say "death to America" and then not at least critically support something that directly harms American interests.
We criticize Democrats for offering shit because so many countries have proven programs that are far better. For example, the student loan program you cite that's means tested to death is laughable in comparison to all the countries that have effectively free college. There's no reason to give Democrats any credit for suggesting something that's decades behind most of Europe.
In contrast, I don't think there's any precedent for this scale of multilateral trade agreement that includes significant labor protections. Certainly nothing in the 30 years since the fall of the Soviet Union. To paraphrase someone else in this thread, I don't think leftists like us (i.e., posters) should be too critical of socialist states on the grounds that they have thus far failed to achieve something that's never (or almost never) been done before. I don't think that appropriately accounts for the enormous challenges of turning theory into reality. The measuring stick should be "are they doing as much as they realistically are able to do, given real-world conditions" not "are they doing as much as is theoretically possible, assuming the best possible conditions."
Always a good consideration.
Yeah, I guess I agree. Those are all fair points.
I commented elsewhere too to someone who raised a very similar point re: "doing as much as they realistically are able to do". I think that's an unfalsefiable claim. You just have to trust that the govt is doing things the only way they think will work. But, I mean, that doesn't convince anyone who doesn't already trust them.
I'm not sure "unfalsifiable" is the best term for it. We know there are some worse things they could do, and we know there are some better things we can imagine that are practically impossible. We can give them credit for not doing some of the bad things and we can not blame them for not doing the impossible things. Even inside of those boundaries, we can have rational discussions about what is possible-and-easy vs. what is possible-but-difficult.
This conversation does involve (fact-based) speculation, but it's the type of speculation you or I would engage in to determine if an individual was making a good-faith effort at doing something.