Freedom for Capital?

There is a recurring threat to global political stability: Revolutionaries. They are neither communists, nor terrorists. In fact, many rebellious leaders are good people, albeit not all are Platonic philosophers. They rally the masses because they happen to better understand them. And thus, peoples inevitably underwrite The Commons. Masses rally behind cabinets of terrorists; they make the men who later become kings and then appear as philosophers.

Collections of like-minded individuals underwrite the power of any government, whereby all peoples appear as intrinsically democratic. Some vote with fists and fire intermittently. Others happen to have learned to use ballots regularly. Best of all: Individuals and their constituent societies all vote internationally -- with currencies. It is men -- communists, terrorists, republicans, and democrats -- who thereby make markets volatile, but at the same time act as the universal underwriters of trade and of governance. But the threat is not capital. Continued lack thereof taunts all of the world's needy and harasses the ignorant (although the latter are partially comfortable masses). Ignorance to this relativity is the self-correcting plague that befalls us. Thus market volatility is slowly returning. The scare often appears as Red: Implicitly acquiescing with social losses, which ironically, forge a route to progress. These forces, sadly, constrict capital in the interim.

"Latin America's Populist Shift," a recent NYT article sums the effects of all aforementioned sentiments quite coherently: "From Venezuela to Argentina, many of the traditional parties ... are disintegrating. Disillusioned by corruption and a failure to deliver prosperity, voters are increasingly captivated by new, mostly leftist movements promising to redistribute wealth, punishing traditional parties and turning political systems on their heads. ... The new leaders and movements they bring to power, though, threaten to create a political free-for-all that could weaken already unstable countries." Mexico is next. Then, possibly, the quintessential "America" itself. Until then, NAFTA is the alpha secret treaty for the twenty-first century. It is not entirely international. The aforementioned South Americans ignored it. And we will all come to regret this ignorance that was permitted by tired and disenchanted peoples. Commoners are implicitly left out, whereby their ignorance is exacerbated. As supra-national commerce advances interests of private individuals -- if only in uneven fashion -- inevitably jobs start to fly, wages fluctuate. Benefits provided by welfare states, the world's alpha democracies, also start to vacillate. "What would you not want your government to privatize?" -- this eternal question is then asked of the masses. It is a question relevant to Mexicans and to all other Americans.

Enterprises, which are inefficient will be a target for corporate takeovers. Otherwise, there will always be "proletarian" uprisings -- the sad and long, tacit form of democracy. Both types of "buyouts" tend to be inefficient, but never at the outset. Hopes fuel people and their elected governments, inasmuch as similar sentiments encourage businesses -- owners and employees -- to make sacrifieces. Free trade in the Americas is indicative of sacrifices. Times of trouble require corparate takeovers, yet they must preclude dramatic changes in government. Alas, the in-built judicial system of NAFTA is literally private and, moreover, explicitly secret. We know that alternate dispute resolution (ADR) governs inter-corporate troubles in North America; we also know relatively little about this.

Congressmen and presidents presumably do have a say in matters of supra-national importance. But who wants to openly discuss soon-to-be sacrifices with commoners? Secrets also withhold information from perceived enemies. Ironic isn't it? Free zones for commerce and for capital remain threatening to outsiders. And currencies remain intrinsically exclusive: they measure the benefit derived on the behalf of different Commons. Thus benefits do not transcend borders in inefficient markets.