October 7, 2010
THE LEFT IS THE RIGHT:
Liberalism's moral crisis on trade (Matt Miller, October 7, 2010, Washington Post)
Here's my question for American progressives: If you're for the little guy, are you just for American little guys? Or are you for poor underdogs even if they happen to have been born in India or China? [...]Venting against foreigners when times are hard is only natural, especially when China is in fact guilty as charged. But the question that liberals sidestep for now is what their posture will be toward China and India when times are again good -- and when these nations' economic "crimes" aren't bad behavior but merely a desire to get richer.
The mother of all inconvenient truths is this: Global capitalism's ability to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in China, India and other developing countries comes partly at the expense of tens of millions of workers in wealthy nations. This awful, inexorable fact will soon pose an enormous moral and intellectual challenge for the American left.
To understand why, ask liberal trade foes how they square their hopes for the millions of workers striving to improve their lives here in America with a defensible moral stance toward the billions beyond our borders who seek better lives themselves -- some of whom want to come here, and nearly all of whom want to trade with us in ways that may put American jobs or earnings at risk.
Trade is just another issue--like immigration, intervention, etc.--where the Left manages to arrive at the same point as the Right--in opposition--just coming at it from a different angle.
