A Conversation With Robert Rubin (Page 6)

That would be one way to make such a standard. To say: We want people to produce everywhere, including the very poorest countries, but they have to have some system within that country where wages rise proportionate to rising productivity and profit or whatever measure you use.

Something like that ought to be an objective of the global system. You know in some countries, I think that actually has worked pretty well. I mean, China and India have terrible poverty problems, but it's also true their political systems are at least trying to address them.

I would argue some other countries I can think of, and I won't mention names, but there are significant emerging markets where you've had a fair bit of growth...and you still have had very little effect on the poverty rate. And middle-income people haven't done all that well either. So the political economic elites had all this economic benefit and they were indifferent to the poverty, to the poor. Can I go off the record? [names a country where elites notoriously ignore the poor]

Boy, I'd like to put that on the record.

I bet you would.

But go back to what you said--"something like this ought to be the objective of the global system."

Yeah, how you accomplish that, I don't know.

The other side--labor and other liberals--would acknowledge that it has the potential just to be a simple protectionist measure but, if it's done with genuine objective so that both ends of the system benefit, that is, workers, it is not beyond devising some set of rules. Would you be for that at least in principle?

I think it's the right objective. But how you get there--I guess that's one of the things that troubles me.... But I think the conception seems sort of right to me. So, conceptually, the answer is I think I would be. On the other hand, the problem is the people who try to design those rules always seem to be doing it in a way that stops trade liberalization rather than for the objective I just mentioned. Maybe that's unfair, but it's certainly struck me that way.

• « Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• Next »

• Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 68 cents a week!
• If you like this article, consider making a donation to The Nation.
• Reprint this article. Click here for rights and information.