CKNW Editorial
for July 14, 1999

There are obviously two “lefts” in the world today – the left of the Tony Benns of the world as represented by the hard left of the British Labour party and the federal and BC branches of the NDP – and the left of Tony Blair and, in Canada, Roy Romanow. I suppose it would be more accurate to say that the modern left, or Tony Blair’s “New Labour” have really co-opted the center and are in the process of regurgitating and spitting out the old left.

The old left, as we have heard on this program, still deals in shibboleths of ancient days and is utterly unable to deal with the world as it is. In a way that’s understandable because the world is so different now than it was 10 years ago, when the Iron Curtain was felled, that few, if any have any answers to ever more important questions.

What the left cannot accept is that the Iron Curtain really did come down and with it fell socialism, both of the compulsory variety presented by communism and the gradual variety presented by social democracy. The system propounded now by the old left failed.

It succeeded, mark you, in ameliorating much of the harshness of raw capitalism and undoing a lot of its social and environmental damage. Any fair observer must make that concession. But Socialism, whether voluntary or forced, utterly failed to construct an economic system that worked. Even where the state had absolute control of capital and the means of production, as in the Soviet Union, they made an utter hash of it and the penalties being paid by Russians and others today are not those imposed by capitalism but are penalties for putting up with socialism for so long.

It was the micro chip that did it – that plus the ability to broadcast and telecast anywhere in the world even over the objections of the politicians.

Now the genie is out of the bottle. There is what Thomas Friedman calls the electronic herd, the large pools of capital that roam the world looking for places it’s most welcome, uncaring of the social costs it may leave in its wake.

And here’s where the rubber hits the road. It’s not a question of whether globalization has terrible downsides – it clearly does. The question is what do you do about them. And here is where the old left is utterly useless.

What the left can do, of course, is tote up a litany of complaints. No one can match the old left for doing that. Reciting all the evils of the world is second nature to them – what is not second nature is coming up with any sensible solutions.

The left is taking credit for defeating MAI last year. It did no such thing – at least it scarcely did it alone. What it did, more than most others, was highlight a wrong way with dealing with the excesses of globalization and for that we must all be grateful. But the thinking left will tell you that there must be an MAI – not that one, but another which takes into account the concerns legitimately raised and brings some order to world trade.

The Canada-US Trade Agreement has been in place nearly 10 years. It will not be repealed and that’s that. Nor will NAFTA – indeed it was folly of the US Congress to block the inclusion of Chile. For the left to screech out their list of all that’s wrong – conveniently ignoring all that’s right – then say that the cure is to destroy the Free Trade Agreement and NAFTA is just plain silly and they look like the damned fools they are.

The electronic herd is not centrally governed. The White House doesn’t say where capital will or won’t go – it couldn’t if it wished to. The silicon chip removed that power long ago. If the White House or Congress can’t stop this electronic herd, Ottawa certainly can’t. What government can and must do is deal with this herd as you deal with the animal variety. You must divert the chief bulls and that can only be done if first, you recognize that the herd cannot be stopped or turned just by a palm up gesture of the government hand and secondly, if new and thoughtful approaches are taken by all governments to control the herd.

When the herd comes to our part of the world to spend its money instead of spending it somewhere else, we must recognize that our gain may be temporary and that the money, finding a better deal may go elsewhere. This means that we must recognize the hurt that the herd can do, by containing it through international cooperation. It seems such a good idea to attract large chunks of capital by giving it great tax breaks and other concessions but it isn’t nearly as much fun when that same capital picks up its stake and moves to an even friendlier location.

The trick is to retain our social benefits and the benefits of our own society while profiting from the enormous benefits large pools of capital can provide. There is no sense batting our heads against a wall calling on Ottawa to curtail the free transference of capital when neither it nor any other capital in the world can do so.

These are indeed challenging times and until the left can come up with answers to those challenges which meet the realities of these times, it will remain no more relevant than Alexa McDonough, Glen Clark or Tony Benn. It will remain stuck in a time warp of its own making. The sooner it recognizes this the better off we’ll all be.