Are we already in the post-democratic era?

Gallery

Posted on by

Is TPP the post-democracy blue-print for the EU-US Free Trade Agreement?  The implications are outlined.

Before Christmas, I was alarmed to hear Nick Clegg and then David Cameron ‘rather too casually’ mention their support for an EU-US Free Trade Agreement (FTA).  It now seems that such negotiations have in fact, been going on in secret for over a year.. and secrecy is the name of the game.  The posted video clip below, discusses the nature of the massive Trans Pacific Pact or Free Trade Agreement (TPP) which Obama has been pushing for, throughout his first administration (1) There is every reason to believe that these alarming negotiations will be the blue-print for an EU-US FTA, and therefore, could act as a pre-warning for the UK/EU populace.

Since the 10-year-old Doha round of global trade talks deadlocked, the EU and the United States have been trying to sign as many bilateral free-trade deals as they can to lock in (2), to access fast-growing economies, especially in Asia (see Cameron’s smarminess in India).  But, according to Reuters, the debt crisis in Europe and elusive American growth are pushing both sides to consider knocking down the final barriers to trade. (3)  Together, the bloc and the United States account for about half the world’s economic output and nearly a third of world trade.  It is significant that the libertarian US think-tank, Cato asks the question whether some of the concepts contained in the draft EU-US FTA are appropriate for a binding international agreement on free trade  ‘or do they turn trade agreements into a kind of global constitution?’ (4)

And that is the major problem with these Free Trade Agreements. They just don’t seem to be very much about trade.

And I have to say ‘seem’ because although 600 corporates have been participating in the negotiations, even members of Congress are not allowed to see either the draft or final negotiated TPP settlements.

Why would that be?  Why are the negotiations secret?  Lori Wallach in the video clip, says that the US Chair, in a moment of plain speaking, told a Reuters reporter that the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) was impossible to finalise because there were so many objections when they published the plans.  In other words, because the general public and politicians opposed their sovereignty being transferred to the corporates, they’ve decided not to tell them about the TPP!

According to Congressman Denis Kucinich, the leaked information on TPP indicates that it is NAFTA ‘on steroids’.  So if countries objected to NAFTA what will we feel about an EU-US FTA?

Furthermore, I would put no money on the European Parliament, let alone Parliament, being allowed access to even see the EU-US FTA negotiations.  Neither the MPs or the MEPs were allowed to know the details when the EU signed up to the 1994 GATS treaty (5) and that treaty contained all the seeds of privatizing the NHS, social security and education that we are now seeing implemented by the Tory/LDs, and across the EU.  This one would lock us in to even more stringent requirements.

The worrying aspects of the leaked TPP documents concern the outsourcing of jobs, the outlawing of domestic legislation protecting workers, human rights, food safety and the environment.  There is a particular focus working against generic medicines, on behalf of the pharmaceutical companies that rank amongst the most profitable US and UK firms – for example patents could be extended ensuring more expensive drug therapies.  A version of SOPA could be introduced by the backdoor, limiting internet freedom and internet privacy rights.  It would also shield foreign capital from domestic laws, essentially deregulating finance even further, at a point when there are calls for greater not less regulation.

But overarching all of this, is the transfer of sovereignty from nations to private corporate tribunals (6) who will be empowered to compel governments to change their laws or pay unlimited fines.  Foreign companies will essentially not be bound by domestic laws.

This begs the question as to how much of the Tory/LD programme and the changes being forced on EZ countries, under the guise of ‘austerity’ were/are, in fact, in preparation for compliance with the proposed EU-US FTA? (7)

Human rights, environmental protection and employment rights could all be contested and overturned by private corporate tribunals.  The post-democratic age will have been enshrined in binding legislation… and all of it will be done in secret! (8)

Ordinary people may have won the battle in Seattle in 1999 but globally, we’re losing the war in 2013 and just like the GATS, most of us probably won’t even realise that its happening until too late.

“For all the endless empty chatter about democracy, today, the world is run by three of the most secretive institutions in the world: the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization. All three of which, in turn, are dominated by the U.S.’

http://escholarship.org/uc/item/56w0s261#page-5

Inside Story Americas – Will the Pacific trade deal protect workers?

Published on Dec 5, 2012

http://www.youtube.com/NewsAlJazeera
Plz Subscribe for Latest News
The 15th round of negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) began in New Zealand this week. Critics say trade is only a small part of what is being discussed. So why is the TPPA so secretive? Guests: Lori Wallach, Celeste Drake.

(1) https://think-left.org/2012/08/29/the-unfree-flow-of-information-and-cyberspace/

 Dean Baker writes in the Guardian that the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, a pact that the United States is negotiating with Australia, Canada, Japan and eight other countries in the Pacific region) ‘is an effort to use the holy grail of free trade to impose conditions and override domestic laws in a way that would be almost impossible if the proposed measures had to go through the normal legislative process. The expectation is that by lining up powerful corporate interests, the governments will be able to ram this new “free trade” pact through legislatures on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.’ 

(2)  https://think-left.org/2011/09/16/the-very-design-of-neoliberal-principles-is-a-direct-attack-on-democracy-and-workers-rights/

(3)  http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/17/us-eu-usa-trade-idUSBRE89G0KT20121017

(4)  http://www.cato.org/blog/proposed-us-eu-fta-good-bad-ugly

(5)  https://think-left.org/2011/07/21/red-labour-must-address-the-elephant-in-the-room/

(6)  https://think-left.org/2012/03/16/the-top-10-flaws-of-neoclassical-economics/

9. Neoclassical Economics ignores perpetual increasing scale.

As a result of perpetual exponential growth, institutions in the system continually get bigger and bigger. We saw this as the economic system made towns, counties, and states irrelevant through the last century, and we are now seeing it as mega banks and corporations are now making national governments irrelevant. People are now living as tiny cogs in a machine of incomprehensible scale. Everything in life has been monetized, so things that don’t generate bank credit get devalued (spirituality, psychology, rest, joy, play, etc).

(7)  https://think-left.org/2012/06/15/brinkmanship-and-the-euro-crisis/

(8)  https://think-left.org/2012/03/05/transnational-corporations-have-not-let-a-good-crisis-go-to-waste/

 

 

 

 

52 thoughts on “Are we already in the post-democratic era?”

  1. Pingback: Are we already in the post-democratic era? | Welfare, Disability, Politics and People's Right's | Scoop.it

  4. BSCparty wud Revoke any Deals like this that Takes Democracy from the People. All parties that wud join us shud stand up and be Counted.

    Like

    Reply ↓

  6. Yay at last, Someone talking about the problems we all face, the rapacious pan global corporate profit monsters!

    “… perpetual exponential growth, institutions in the system continually get bigger and bigger. … now seeing it as mega banks and corporations are now making national governments irrelevant. People are now living as tiny cogs in a machine of incomprehensible scale. Everything in life has been monetized” aka Corporatism

    Someone developing a Manifesto against corruption wp.me/p1EWsW-2p

    Like

    Reply ↓

    • Opposition? Surely you jest – that’s as stuffed full of Establishment figures as the other two main parties. There is no oppposition to these policies, ony a mad scamble to be the political and financial beneficiaries. We are betrayed utterly by our political system and given that politics is how these people butter their bread, who can be surprised? The original politicians had no skin in the game, they’d made their pile before they went into it. Today’s politicians have to make their pile from being in it so obviously their interests and ours can never be the same.

      Like

      Reply ↓

  8. Pingback: Noam Chomsky Dissects the World Trade Organisation | Think Left

  9. So a kind of global version of what Mussolini was doing then? Just wondering:
    How does the tribunal have the power to enforce fines?
    Doesn’t handing over this kind of sovereignty to a foreign body count as some kind of treason?

    Like

    Reply ↓

    • Treasonous .. I agree but our government gets to define treason. The fine would be for breaking the contract so presumably would be framed as coming under international commercial law.

      In fact, the Major government handed over these powers to the WTO in 1994, and the EU commissioners signed up the EU in 1995. The new agreements just implement the updated bits that have already been rejected in the Seattle and Doha global negotiations. Its the same as EU referendums, they just keep on re-introducing until they find the means to get the corporates own way.

      Like

      Reply ↓

  10. hi , two more links you may find useful, http://opendemocracy.net/ournhs/linda-kaucher/real-force-behind-nhs-act-euus-trade-agreement and http://opendemocracy.net/ournhs/nicola-cutcher-lucy-reynolds/nhs-as-we-know-it-needs-prayer

    ” These regulations can also be understood as part of a broader international trade agenda which involves liberalising services. US President Barack Obama recently announced [18] the forthcoming US-EU Free Trade Agreement, which David Cameron has said [19] will be a key priority for the G8 this year. As part of the preparations for this, EU countries have been instructed to harmonise their economies with the US regulatory system. Publicly-owned and run healthcare systems, many of which are at or near completion of a process of privatisation, are a little-reported but prime focus of this process. International trade researcher Linda Kaucher [20] put it another way when speaking to us, “The NHS is being chopped up and prepared for transnational investors.”
    ” Caroline Molloy, a campaigner for ‘Keep Our NHS Public’ working on a briefing paper about these regulations, emphasised to us, “People never voted for NHS reforms in the last election and they proved unpopular with the public and health professionals. Now these additional regulations are being quietly slipped through trying to enforce competition in the NHS, contrary to reassurances that were given in Parliament and to commissioners. These regulations prioritise the rights of providers, not the rights of patients, commissioners, local communities or indeed elected representatives. We believe that there should be a full parliamentary debate and vote on these regulations.”

    Like

    Reply ↓

    • Thanks .. Linda Kaucher has worked tirelessly to keep this information in the public sphere 🙂 I remember reading the memo leaked by the MEPs when the Commissioners and Council were signing up to the GATT and WTO. We simply couldn’t take it seriously .. it sounded so far from where the world then was.. little did we know!

      Like

      Reply ↓

  11. Pingback: How to fight neoliberals: The New Zealand experiment revisited | Notes from a Broken Society

  12. Firstly, given the latest scandal over horsemeat, it would seem that it’s already very easier to circumnavigate European trade rules. So loosening them is now the answer? It would probably lead to even more corruption, make it even easier for ‘safety’ to be passed in one trading bloc, without oversight or scrutiny of the assessment process by any other country. Secondly, do those ‘independent’ US companies complaining about selling their goods in Europe due to safety regulations think they would remain independent for much longer once such deregulation came into play? It would simply make it easier for them to be subsumed by larger multi-nationals. The regulations already fail because they are de facto self regulating. If you want to see what such self-deregulation leads to, see media regulation, food safety regulation, tax regulation, banking regulation…

    Like

    Reply ↓

  13. Pingback: Threat to our Rights as we slip into the Post-Democratic Era | Think Left

  14. Pingback: The Penalties of Ostrich Politics and Willful Destruction of the Welfare State and the NHS | Think Left

  15. Feels more like Globalist Synarchy from Foucault’s pendulum rather than constructive power groupings to solve the planets ills.

    Like

    Reply ↓

    • I certainly don’t think its about solving the planet’s ills… securing the wealth of the 0.14% more like! However, your analogy is a very good one. The fantasy solution of narcissists who can only visualise a world that provides for them, and the accompanying paranoia that they will not get their way.

      Like

      Reply ↓

  16. Pingback: For the Benefit of the Conservative Party – “FOR SALE – Local Hospital and Schools “ | Think Left

  17. Pingback: For the Benefit of the Conservative Party – “FOR SALE – Local Hospital and Schools “

  18. Pingback: The hidden welfare state | Think Left

  19. Pingback: The hidden welfare state that the U.K. government dares not speak of | Black Triangle Campaign

  20. Pingback: One Data Protection rule for them, and another for us. | Think Left

  21. Pingback: The EU-US Free Trade Agreement must be opposed – for the sake of the NHS and more. | Think Left

  22. Pingback: Let’s have Tony Benn’s Democratic Revolution. Now. | Think Left

  23. Pingback: ‘Politics and Parasites’ | Politics and Parasites

  24. Pingback: This Trans Pacific “Partnership” is really, really bad News. #WikiLeaks | Think Left

  25. Pingback: “Free Trade” Treaties are for Big Corporations, not for us. | Think Left

  26. Pingback: Petition – STOP TAFTA ! Why the Free Trade Agreement Must Not Go Ahead | Think Left

  27. Pingback: The hidden welfare state that the U.K. government dares not speak of | ΕΝΙΑΙΟ ΜΕΤΩΠΟ ΠΑΙΔΕΙΑΣ

  28. Pingback: Are we already in the post-democratic era? | ΕΝΙΑΙΟ ΜΕΤΩΠΟ ΠΑΙΔΕΙΑΣ

  29. Pingback: “ROTHSCHILDS THROUGH MONSANTO, GOLDMAN SACHS, EXXON, GOOGLE, OBAMA, NATO, RENZI AND MERKEL PUSH FOR NEW WORLD ORDER” | GachiYellow

  30. Pingback: ‘ROTHSCHILDS THROUGH MONSANTO, GOLDMAN SACHS, EXXON, GOOGLE, OBAMA, NATO, RENZI AND MERKEL PUSH FOR NEW WORLD ORDER’

  31. Pingback: INFERNAL BARONS THAT CONTROL BIG CORPORATIONS PUSH FOR A NEW WORLD ORDER MADE OF SLAVERY AND GENOCIDES – fghjklm |

  32. Pingback: For just a few moments, phone hacking and Leveson drew the curtain aside on Corporate contempt for ordinary people. | Think Left

  34. Pingback: What is the Transatlantic Trade Investment Partnership? | Think Left

  35. Pingback: ROTHSCHILDS THAT CONTROL MONSANTO, LOCKHEED, HALLIBURTON, PFIZER, EXXON, CHEVRON, BP, GOLDMAN SACHS, GOOGLE, TEMPLETON, OBAMA, NATO, RENZI AND MERKEL PUSH FOR NEW WORLD ORDER | HUMAN RIGHTS & THE SIEGE OF BRITAIN POLITICAL JOURNAL

  36. Pingback: Everything you wanted to know about Globalism but were to overwhelmed to Google ! | OCCUPY AMERICA

  37. Pingback: Who is Charlie? | Think Left

  38. Pingback: Is the whisper of the People heard through “Democracy” looking down on them? | Think Left

  39. Pingback: The Changing Face of Europe | Think Left

  40. Pingback: Grangemouth and the EU/WTO | Think Left

Leave a comment