Catalyst

Taking the shirts off their backs

Two weeks ago, when the protests commemorating and calling for an end to the U.S. war in Iraq occupied the nation’s imagination, Susan Mark Landis, Peace Advocate, Mennonite Church USA Executive Leadership gave a message on non-violence.  The focus was mainly on confronting physical violence, but I couldn’t help draw some parallels with how we confront economic violence, economic injustice. 

Drawing on John Dear’s definition of non-violence in his book Disarming the Heart, Landis asserts that:

Nonviolence Means Remembering We Are All God's Children.  This is a basic ground rule in teaching.  The human family is one under God.  Therefore we can neither kill each other nor watch each other die of starvation.  For this reason, we choose life rather than death and the community of humanity rather than the isolation of violence.

In considering Jesus’ teaching, “And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him (or her) have your cloak as well.” (Matthew 5:40), Landis argues:

[T]he debts of the poor were usually owed to fellow Jews, not the Roman government.  So, here the man stands, with nothing left to use to pay his debt but the clothes off his back…Those listening to Jesus believed that nakedness shames the person who looks on nakedness more than the naked person himself.  So the rich man should have been more embarrassed than the very poor one.  And the poor man, in effect, is saying to the rich man, “You want the coat off my back?  Take it, and all my clothes.  See, I have nothing left.  And what kind of a person takes everything from a fellow Jew?”  Once again, Jesus is encouraging his listeners to help the oppressor see his sin and offer the opportunity for repentance.”

When it comes to U.S. trade policy, the U.S. wants it all, we want the shirt off the back of our trading partners, particularly the developing countries.  And what kind of person takes everything from a fellow human? 

Yesterday, Congressman Charles Rangel (D-NY), Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee introduced to the Democratic caucus a new proposal for U.S. trade policy.  As with any good legislative proposal, the devil will be in the details, and the details have not been made available to the public.  That being said, the Rangel proposal, or rather the principles that were made public, suggest that the proposal only tinkers around the edges of existing trade policy and largely assumes an America First position. 

It appears that advances will be made on the protection and enforcement of labor rights and environmental regulations.  The possibility is given for repeal of some of the most egregious WTO-plus provisions on pharmaceutical intellectual property rights which make it harder and more expensive for people in developing countries to get vital generic medicines, by “re-establishing a fair balance between promoting access to medicines and protecting pharmaceutical innovation in developing countries.”  Restrictions on government procurement disciplines could be loosened to ensure that it promotes “basic worker rights and acceptable conditions of work.”  And investor protections may be amended, at least for the U.S. so that foreign investors are given no greater rights than those afforded to U.S. investors - no mention is made if this amendment would hold for our trading partners as well.

These are positive baby steps, but at its heart, this vision for U.S. trade policy is just a prettied up version of the violent neoliberal economic model.  The free trade Democrats, like their Republican counterparts remain committed to trade policies which aggressively pursue market access for U.S. goods and services and challenge policies in other countries which limit U.S. business activity - but may be in the best interest of that country’s own development and social objectives.  Profit maximization, economic efficiency and U.S. economic domination remain the unwritten guiding principles.  Rather than question the fundamental economic model, the Rangel proposal attempts to heal a gaping wound with a band-aid.  There is no sense that we are all part of the human community and life for all must be chosen.   

We’ve seen how these policies lead to economic despair, social dislocation and growing inequality, and what the Democratic leadership offered yesterday is really just more of the same.  The band-aid solution proposed by Rangel isn't sufficient for our trading partners, and it's not sufficient for the majority of U.S. citizens.  This model of trade, of economic activity, means there will only be a few winners.  It's designed so the rich will get richer and poor and workers, well they'll keep losing the shirt off their back.

I wish, when the U.S. looked on the growing poverty and inequality at home and abroad, that we were shamed.  But instead, the proposal doesn’t give me much hope that U.S. trade negotiators won’t simply return to the table demanding the shirt off the backs of our trading partners. 

So is there a non-violent response to this economic violence?

The fair trade movement is one nonviolent response to economic violence and injustice.  This model keeps the shirt on the backs of those formerly exploited and restores their dignity because producers receive a fair return for their work and are rewarded for producing products in an environmentally and socially sustainable manner.  As consumers, who would conceivably benefit from cheaper goods produced through worker and environmental exploitation, in purchasing Fair Trade goods we are afforded the opportunity to repent for an economic model based on competition and domination.  With Fair Trade, fairness and a commitment that economic transactions support the common good, rather than profit, are motivation for the economic activity.  Instead of using any existing power inequality (economic, social, political) between buyer and seller for one party to "get a better deal" or exploit the other, a fair price for both is determined.  And this is good.

But sometimes I just want a bigger, broader nonviolent option, a global nakedness so to speak that would bring about national repentance and the turning toward a more people-centered economy.  I’m open to suggestions.

Prepared by Kristin Sampson, Senior Research Associate, Global Women's Project.

A Moral Budget?

The middle of winter marked the start of the annual budget cycle; and
true to form, the President submitted his budget to Congress on the
first Monday in February.   In it he requested a total of $2.9 trillion
and promised to achieve a surplus by 2012, three years after the end of
his second term.  Part of this unlikely outcome reflects the
expectation of a nearly two thirds reduction in Iraq/Afghanistan
military operations in FY 2009–from $142 billion to $50 billion.

Ten days after receiving this document the Senate finally completed
work on the FY 2007 budget by appropriating $464 billion for the nine
(out of an original 13) remaining line items in the budget for the
current fiscal year, which is already one-half over.  During the five
and a half months between the beginning of FY 2007 and today we have
witnessed the annual budget ballet, which included a midnight session
in December in which the 109th Congress  rolled 520 mostly unread
tariff exemptions costing upward of $25 billion into the law that
deals with the revenue side of the budget process.

In recognition of what the administration views as a new interest in
transparency by the Democratic majority in  the 110th Congress elected
in November, the President included, for the first time, $142 billion
for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan (plus a 2007 supplemental
appropriation of $99.6 billion).  The President refused, however, to
consider rolling back any of the tax breaks enacted for his friends in
the early years of his tenure, which he credits for the economic
growth of the past six years.  Instead, he would reduce Medicare and
Medicaid by cutting $100 million from their annual growth and squeeze
other programs, including housing, education, home heating for the
elderly, health care for children, and support for local police, but
avoid tackling  Social Security.

At the Center of Concern we have consistently maintained that the
budget is the major moral document produced by government, mainly
because it lists our priorities and sets the parameters for action,
thus reflecting our approach to the common good.  The Center for Budget
and Policy Priorities notes that the President emphasized fiscal
irresponsibility and deepening economic inequality as problems he wants
to address, but that if accepted as is, the budget would make both
problems worse by cutting vital social programs, increasinjg defense
spending, making tax cuts that favor the rich permanent, shifting
entitlements to block grants to the States and then cutting them, and
generally endorsing a smoke-and-mirrors budget-balancing farce.

Congress began working on the budget resolution when it returned from
the Presidents' Day recess.  There is some possibility that the new   
Democratic majority would want to return to its old pay-as-you-go
modality, which would requite that any proposed reduction in taxes or
increase in spending would have to be balanced by an equal increase in
revenue  If that should happen, the income and  expenditure totals
would become most important.  Domestic discretional spending would be
most vulnerable, especially via block grants to the States, which
recent Congresses have tended to favor.  Resolution of these issues
will continue to be extremely difficult, e.g., for the Department of
Agriculture, which administers the Food Stamp program.

Income inequality would  be sharply increased if the early  Bush tax
cuts are extended and relief from the Alternative Minimum Tax is
continued:  the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities notes that the
top 1 per cent of households will receive over $1 million in tax cuts
over the next ten years, and that "the annual cost of the tax cuts for
those with incomes over $1 million also will exceed the total savings
in each of the next five years from the cuts the President's budget
proposes in an array of domestic non-entitlement programs, including
education, health research, environmental programs and others" like
energy assistance for low-income households, especially the elderly.   
All of this, of course, includes the assumption that our foreign
millitary operations in Iraq and Afghanistan,  budgeted for  $145
billion in this document and the subject of a Presidential request for
a supplement of $99 billion in FY 2007, will not exceed 50 billion in
2009.

It is often said of legislative proposals sent from the White House to
Capitol Hill that they are "dead on arrival."  This is particularly
true of budgets.  It is difficult, however, to conjecture what might
enliven this particular cadaver.  Preferential option for the  poor,
perhaps?  Are these the moral choices a moral President should present
to a society that prides itself on being moral?  The budget resolution,
due next month, may enlighten us.  But don't hold your breath.

For further detail and analysis, please consult:
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP.org)
Center for Tax Justice (CTJ.org)
Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center (taxpolicycenter.org).

Posted by Martin McLaughlin, Adjunct Associate, Agribusiness Accountability Initiative and author of the book World Food Security.