World Trade Organization, biased towards big business?

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_WTO

Is the WTO really being fair?




The WTO should involve everyone concerned, and have elected members. It should also care for LEDCs.



Environment and Labour are important. There should have been regulations to ensure good worker conditions, but it has neglected that issue. In LEDCs, worker conditions and pay are often very poor, yet nothing has been done by the WTO.

The WTO should either reform itself, or break up.

Big business and corporations are the one true folly of free trade and capitalism, but one that most capitalists support. So it makes sense that the WTO would support big business instead of the working people.

Possibly not, but part of that is the nature of international politics. The rich countries are not going to really change their policies based upon what poor countries want. I believe many economists want the rich countries to change their protections as well but it really has not happened.

Why should the WTO be so concerned with transparency? It does not trust outside groups. Now it is possible that the WTO is biased but that would be likely to happen anyway as it is controlled by the richer countries and works for their ends rather than the poor. It helps the poor because the rich countries want it to, and it will not likely want outside influence because most outside influences are dumb on economics and the poor nations are often not trusted with their own welfare in some ways. I think that


Why should there be regulations? Those regulations could easily be ignored anyway due to labor market conditions and I am not sure that labor market regulations would even promote the best end anyway given that there are some reports in China for example(if I remember the article I read on yahoo news) that the desire for money is so strong that the people are willing to take horrific trade-offs to get it. I think that the best way to improve worker conditions and pay are to promote economic growth, we grew out of the Industrial Revolution, so will they.

I think that too negative of a view is being taken on it. I mean, really, I would likely pursue a doctrine of pure free-trade anyway so I would not care much about the WTO and the management of trade but that is me.

Big business and corporations might have undue influences on political structures, however, they are not a folly given the strong need for large capital holding organizations to preform major tasks. Some corporate form is necessary in order to get large amounts of capital together and use it for the common good, corporations are designed to do that effectively through seeking profit-maximization, there are some problems with market failure but beyond that they are more self-regulating than a lot of other structures we could have had for the very same need.

Like what ?

Most member countries are bound to the WTO's rules, and it doesn't regulate working conditions, but trade with no thought for the consequences. Is absolutely free trade really a good thing? I think that we should focus more on fair trade, and people should get what they deserve for their products, not be exploited. Regulations are required so that free markets are fair as well. People should be allowed to trade with anyone, that's free trade alright, but regulations are needed to make it fair. Wage slavery should be eliminated, and poor conditions should be improved upon to a basic standard.

I don't mean that everyone should be able to buy fancy goods, I mean that everyone should be able to buy food, water, fuel, and medical supplies. I'm concerned about wellbeing and standards of living.

Any large scale organization of capital. Think about automotive companies, the capital has to be organized and no single person can likely provide it. Frankly, the pervasiveness of corporations simply reflects the pervasiveness of tasks at which these entities are most efficient at providing, if they were less efficient then a more mobile competitor would outmaneuver them.

There is certainly thought over the consequences. Yes, absolutely free trade is a good thing based upon the ideas of comparative advantage. Fair is an empty notion, not only that but a fair wage can simply mean the reallocation of industry to a place with more expensive and higher quality workers, the workers are paid low wages for a low reliability and high risk package. Exploitation is often an empty concept in a value-neutral framework as well. Because fair is inherently an empty concept, regulations may or may not be necessary based upon what universal definition of fair one goes by, free exchange is not something that needs to be regulated nor is agreement. Wage slavery is a vapid Marxian term that really lacks a lot of value.

Not everyone is currently able to buy those goods and a lot of that is because economic impoverishment in those areas is so high. Without these industries we would see more destitutes begging on the streets or searching through garbage. One should be comparing non-trade vs trade rather than trade vs ideal as the ideal is a useless comparison. I am not convinced that changing trade rules will be the most beneficial act, nor do I think that they should be set up. Honestly, I do believe in complete elimination of tariffs, quotas, and other trade regulations and think that such should be pursued by most nations regardless of what those other nations do.

well, as I point out to people (and get no thanks for my pains) Osama Bil Ladin's gang didn't bomb New York City. .

he bombed the World Trade Center

And of course he was planning on attacking 4 targets(4 planes hijacked), he also wanted the pentagon and some sources claim the US capitol. I believe that this was for symbolic reasons, the WTC represents the US's economic might, the Pentagon represents our military might, and the US capitol represents our political structure. The fact of the matter that Bin Laden didn't attack all of New York simply represents the weapons he chose to use, attacking all of New York would have been more devastating but would have required more than 4 airplanes to enact effectively.

Conservative right wing governments that only support big business and who want to put the working class and poor into an environment where they are struggling to survive should be hoist by their own petard and done away with. The idiot who is PM of this country (Howard) keeps preaching that if he loses government, then the incoming Labour government will be run by the trade union movement. What's wrong with that? I'd prefer the unions running things rather than some big business lackey who is only there because of kickbacks he receives through schemes to make them richer and the rest of us get screwed. At least the unions bothered to fight for the rights of the workers when times were hard, what did big business do? Sack everybody, cut costs and raise prices. Free trade is a joke, because the ones who really benefit are the huge conglomerates, while Joe Blow gets f*ck all. So if anything, when the next election comes along, use your whole collective voice and get rid of these money hungry leeches and put someone in who gives a damn.

Oh, ok, that is an interesting view I suppose. By your view I should probably be shoved away as well given that I tend more on the right than the left economically. The issue with unions is that they are not for everyone but only for the union workers within them, this means that they will push for economically inefficient actions for their own benefits, businesses can do the same but a lot simply argue for conditions that will make allocation of resources and transactions more efficient, the worries end up being skewed laws and unnecessary regulations. Big business does look out for its own ends of course, but if competition is vigorous then we find that these benefits pass on to consumers, if economic times are harsh then corporations will rationally reduce their consumption of resources and try to increase revenue in order to survive, given that profit-maximization is constantly their desire, I would think that the act of raising prices in that instance is a sign of economic change(either adapting to inflation or market changes). Free trade is a useful thing, it can negatively impact the distribution of wealth in a nation(as can technological change and both are negatively impacting wages at the bottom) but it does improve the efficient use of resources and this efficiency can allow for growth. I am not going to go your political direction, if only because economic populism tends to scare the crap out of me.

The last Free Trade Agreement between Australia and the US may have opened up our market to them, but while the US still kept tariffs on their production, it meant our exporters weren't able to compete. Either all tariffs should have lifted, to make it totally fair, or none at all; otherwise, there is no level playing field.

Also, Howard's IR laws have skewed everything toward big business, and have taken away all the protections that the unions fought for since Eureka. The conservatives will say the laws are fair, but when workers are put back to levels that they were at in the 40s and 50s, where is the fairness there? Why should workers have to give up conditions just to sign new contracts to make big business happy? Workers' benefits flow on to everyone, because higher pay means more disposable income, which means more money in the economy.

I think that the US should remove all tariffs and the levelness of the playing field isn't even my concern. If any economic group cannot compete then resources will be shifted to producing other valuable things.

40s and 50s? You cannot mean 1940 or 50 as inflation rates have been incredibly high since then. I cannot say anything about fairness without knowing market conditions though. In the long run(in the economic sense) GDP essentially works out like this GDP = C + I + G where C is consumption, I is investment, and G is government spending. In the long run the GDP is at a stable rate and is treated as constant and this is because unemployment and capital are at their equilibrium levels. Moving money between groups is not going to really impact the economy in this long-run state as if C goes down then either I or G will go up to compensate. In the very long run(where GDP is again treated as a variable), we find that I probably takes on more importance as investment becomes stored capital that helps the economy grow, and most developed nations save less than what they optimally would. I think it is only in the short run where consumption would really come into play and that mostly has to do with economic fluctuations and temporary effects. I think that the overstatement of the importance of consumption is really just perverted Keynesianism. I could be wrong of course and I am sure I have been wrong many times before, I just don't see a great economic impact.

I'm talking about workers conditions, where the employers could sack at will, and the workers had stuff-all rights. Even what they had fought for going back to 1854 when we had the Eureka uprising under Peter Lalor wasn't much back then compared to later on, now that little monkey-man enacted legislation to put the workers back to where they were before they got some of those benefits. Big business doesn't care, because they can do what they like. And if the workers complain, there is always the Dole.

Oh, legal structures. Yeah, I am not quite as concerned about legal structures as I am about actual conditions. If actual conditions had regressed that far then I would show some stronger curiosity.