A selection of recent news stories with an ILSR insight into “The Public Good.” Stories in this Newsfeed: Trade Agreements: What Are We For? | Democracy at Risk: Gerrymandering | Democracy at Risk: Voter ID | Leopold Kohr and the Curse of Bigness | The Privatization of Medicaid | Why Aren’t More Financial Firms Taken to Court? | … Read More
If Walmart will not pay 3 percent more for basic fire safety, if it readily abandons factories when cheaper production can be had elsewhere, if it declines even to come clean about where its goods are made – then how can we buy Walmart’s claim that it will transform factories across Asia into models of sustainability? … Read More
Twelve days before the Iowa caucuses, the New York Times Magazine cover, in large white letters on a deep black background, carried the single word title of its lead article: Clintonism. In the article Matt Bai, the Times reporter on all things Democratic, with a big D, made one undeniable assertion and two highly debatable ones.
Bai’s contention that Bill Clinton’s "wife’s fortunes are bound up with his, and vice versa" is incontestable. The primaries and even more so the general election, if Hillary is the nominee, will be a referendum less on Hillary than on Clintonism, the philosophy and strategy that guided the White House for eight years. Hillary clearly welcomes such a prospect, as demonstrated by her constantly reminding voters that she was "deeply involved in being part of the Clinton team."
Business Forum: NAFTA helped increase flow of illegal immigrants by David Morris Originally published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 7, 2006 The debate about illegal immigration rarely mentions the North American Free Trade Agreement, known as NAFTA. That’s regrettable, since the flood of illegal Mexicans in 2006 empirically challenges the philosophy that guided NAFTA’s design. … Read More
Business Forum: Free Trade is Not Free By David Morris Originally Published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, December 16, 2002 It is hard to argue against free trade. The phrase itself conspires against the critic. Free trade, free markets, free enterprise — all bear the magically seductive word “free.” So to discuss free trade, let’s first … Read More
"Perfection of means and confusion of ends seems to characterize our age."
Thatinsight of Albert Einstein’s half a century ago aptly describes the current debate, or more precisely, non-debate, about free trade.
Whose Rules? By David Morris January 2000 The strongest argument in favor of globalization is its apparent inevitability. And in certain respects, it is inevitable. Even now, at the very beginning of the information age, distance has begun to lose its meaning. In many places, it is now cheaper to make a long distance call than … Read More
Bananas, Justice and Free Trade by David Morris Institute for Local Self-Reliance May 6, 1999 – published in St. Paul Pioneer Press Three planetary corporations–Del Monte, Chiquita and Dole–control 60 percent of the world market for bananas. Seven tiny island nations in the East Caribbean control less than 3 percent. The big boys insist the islanders … Read More
Capital As Citizen by David Morris Institute for Local Self-Reliance This column originally appeared in the January 1998 issue of Minnesota Law and Politics “We are writing the constitution of a single global economy”, boasts Renato Ruggiero, Director-General of the World Trade Organization. The document he’s referring to is the Multilateral Agreement on Investment(MAI). Most of … Read More
