The treaty described by Mr. Reich (in the Salon article linked below) is free trade only in the sense that Big Money wants workers everywhere to trade away what ever small protections they might have left, and do it for virtually nothing in return. This is plain to see in the context of what treaties like this actually do; namely to ensure that their commodities, currency counters and information that creates output of what ever type, are protected, while our only commodity, our skill, is cheapened. Egregious net gain is maintained, in a world of competition, because workers are made to do more for less; pretty much business as usual.
The only truly effective way to stop Big Money from having its way all of the time, in my opinion, is to stop playing the money game in the first place. And the only way to do that is to recognize the need for a new social operating model. One that protects the free flow of information for every one's benefit, as well as fundamentally changes the idea of work, and the production decisions that go into providing for all of our needs.
The old model is obsolete precisely because skill as commodity is ridiculously out of date now. Just as is the notion that livelihoods must be tied to consumptive production on a mass commercial scale. With applied information we can make our own production decisions even as we govern ourselves directly. We need only realize this and then start the process of figuring out the specifics of its design and implementation.
#CapitalismIsObsolete
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