Beyond the Competitiveness Debate: An Internationalist Agenda

Abstract

It is tempting to believe that we live in an era when powerful international economic forces have overwhelmed the ability of progressive constituencies to affect the quality of life and other social and economic circumstances in developed and developing countries alike. How, after all, are organizations of labor, women, environmentalists, and others-all still largely domestically situated and substantially fragmented-to make a meaningful imprint on the course of affairs when the center of historical gravity seems to have shifted to global institutions that we cannot even generally identify, let alone control? In particular, one might be forgiven for concluding that intensified economic competition in global marketsan effect in part of the extension of neoliberalism to the international arena-compels all governments to promote the competitiveness of domestic firms and to subordinate progressive agendas to this paramount goal.1 The purpose of this essay is to begin to envision new forms of internationalist politics and policies that are appropriate to the context in which we live. We take as our focus the new competitiveness debate which has emerged in the U.S. over the past decade. This debate goes to the heart of the questions raised here. Many economists and other social analysts attribute much of the social dislocation in evidence today-including but not limited to the stagnation of real incomes-to the erosion of U.S. competitiveness in global markets.2 The implication drawn is that these social ills can be solved only through restored U.S. economic hegemony. If this view is correct, it would seem, progressives have little choice but to join the national hunt for renewed industrial competitiveness. Indeed, a striking convergence has emerged in recent years among most orthodox and many heterodox economists along precisely these lines. What we call the competitiveness-enhancing school of thought comprises economists of diverse theoretical and political orientations, joined in the shared perception that renewed social progress is tightly bound to the renewed competitiveness of U.S. firms. In our view, this convergence is troublesome for all that it takes for granted. It presumes that firms and, derivatively, workers, communities, and nations around the globe must compete according to the emerging neoliberal rules of the game. These rules, reflected in recent trade and investment agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on George DeMartino and