The whole concept of "preserving culture" is premised on the notion that it is both valuable and endangered.
I would say that it is very valuable, if culture includes respect for property, not giving little girls clitorectomies, not hacking peoples limbs off, not stinking like crap, etc.
Which evidence is that?
But, in general, the protective system of our day is conservative, while the free trade system is destructive. It breaks up old nationalities and pushes the antagonism of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie to the extreme point. In a word, the free trade system hastens the social revolution. It is in this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, that I vote in favor of free trade.
~Karl Marx, "On the Question of Free Trade" - January 9, 1848
If there is anything clearly exposed in political economy, it is the fate attending the working classes under the reign of Free Trade. All those laws developed in the classical works on political economy, are strictly true under the supposition only, that trade be delivered from all fetters, that competition be perfectly free, not only within a single country, but upon the whole face of the earth. These laws, which A. Smith, Say, and Ricardo have developed, the laws under which wealth is produced and distributed — these laws grow more true, more exact, then cease to be mere abstractions, in the same measure in which Free Trade is carried out. And the master of the science, when treating of any economical subject, tells us every moment that all their reasonings are founded upon the supposition that all fetters, yet existing, are to be removed from trade. They are quite right in following this method....
Thus it can justly be said, that the economists — Ricardo and others — know more about society as it will be, than about society as it is. They know more about the future than about the present. If you wish to read in the book of the future, open Smith, Say, Ricardo. There you will find described, as clearly as possible, the condition which awaits the working man under the reign of perfect Free Trade. Take, for instance, the authority of Ricardo, authority than which there is no better. What is the natural normal price of the labour of, economically speaking, a working man? Ricardo replies, “Wages reduced to their minimum — their lowest level.”...
Either you must disavow the whole of political economy as it exists at present, or you must allow that under the freedom of trade the whole severity of the laws of political economy will be applied to the working classes. Is that to say that we are against Free Trade? No, we are for Free Trade, because by Free Trade all economical laws, with their most astounding contradictions, will act upon a larger scale, upon a greater extent of territory, upon the territory of the whole earth; and because from the uniting of all these contradictions into a single group, where they stand face to face, will result the struggle which will itself eventuate in the emancipation of the proletarians....
~Frederick Engels, The Free Trade Congress at Brussels, October 9, 1847
Say what?
This is all I need to read to know that this is pure agit-prop.
You mean, our less competitive enterprizes such as computer software development, medical image analysis and financial analysis?
So please reiterate, given the above, why anyone should believe that the CTPS is nothing more than a gladhandling shill front for multinationals, 100% divorced from everyday reality circa 2003, and intent on elevating multinational corporations and their profits above national sovereignty and individual freedoms and quality of life.
“wherever globalization has taken hold, there has been a measurable improvement in incomes and working conditions” Like Thailand, Cambodia, Columbia, Venezuela….
” Western businesses know that treating workers poorly is bad for business back home” I guess firing American workers and replacing them with cheap foreign labor does not count as “treating workers poorly”
” American consumers demand that US companies respect worker rights, and US companies producing abroad pressure their local suppliers to do the same-a truly virtuous cycle” Oh yes, those women and children in the Vietnam sweatshops have American corporations looking out for their benefit.
Immigration has been good for the US economy and the average American worker. Foreign-born workers fill gaps in the labor force where demand is greatest,
I take it the guy who wrote this doesn't know about California, or is using some sort of a map of the country from before Louis and Clark??