The FTAA will create a hemisphere-wide "level playing field" where corporations can relocate at will. As new location possibilities are opened to corporations, they will be driven to move high paying jobs to the third world, where they can exploit medial wages, low safety standards, and longer hours. You've probably heard about the Nike sweatshop scandal, where shoes are made for pennies in Indonesia and sold in the U.S. for $140 to slavering gangs of riotous, image obsessed ego-junkies. The FTAA will make this problem much worse, as corporations will be drawn to poor Latin American nations like Haiti in their insatiable lust to cut production costs and increase profits. This move from expensive to cheap labor is called the "race to the bottom."

The FTAA will threaten centuries-old labor movements that have fought for workers' rights and fair wages. Corporations will easily quell unionization drives by threatening to relocate. In the U.S., 90% of the plant closings in last 5 years were essentially corporate counter-measures in the face of unionization drives (it is illegal for corporations to do that, by the way). And in Mexico, workers who try to organize unions have been fired and sometimes beaten or arrested by authorities, in order to shut them up.

This "race to the bottom" will also widen the gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots", as Third World Latin American countries will remain dependent on (and will be exploited by) wealthy nations. Poor countries will be forced to focus their capital on producing exports, in order to pay off massive debts incurred by World Bank loans. Keep spreadin' that democracy guys!

Structural Adjustment Programs

The FTAA will expand the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAP's) of the WTO. These programs force poor nations to alter their entire societal framework in order to pay off huge debts. In order to be eligible for debt relief, poor nations must eliminate publicly funded civil programs to allow foreign corporations to come in and sell health, energy, and education products. After corporations secure the market, the prices for those once free or cheap services are often pushed so high that most cannot afford them. This has been going on in Latin America, because of the WTO, for almost a decade now, and the FTAA will only make the situation worse.

Currently, millions in the hemisphere lack the most basic health and education services. Interest rates in Latin America have ballooned from 3% in 1980 to 20% today. This "escape to the early Industrial Age" paradigm is probably best exemplified by the rise in child labor in Latin America, where over 19 million children (who don't receive an education) are working in appalling conditions. And megacorporations in the U.S. can't wait to employ them!

The main point here is that SAP's destroy any hope for development in the third world. Poor countries are compelled to concentrate spending on debt relief rather than social programs, as they must shift to export-based production in order to make the hard currency needed to pay interest to the WTO. And the funny thing is, free trade/global market advocates say they are "promoting sustainable development." I think Noam Chomsky was a little more accurate when he labeled this process "unsustainable non-development."

Militarization

In the future, and there's some evidence to show this is already happening, the purpose of large, wealthy militaries will be to protect the global marketplace. In fact, in a 1997 Pentagon study of the present global situation, it was stated that the future purpose of the U.S. military will be to "protect U.S. interests and investments." (i.e., to protect U.S corporations). The document goes on to claim that the military will have to "respond to movements and rebellions spurred by the growing gap between the rich and the poor." As I mentioned earlier, the FTAA rules on subsidies will encourage governments to spend more on military endeavors, and now we see why.

This is nothing new, however. The infamous School of the Americas, a training ground for Latin American soldiers, conditions its students to protect the interests of corporations. These soldiers often join Latin American "death squads", which are relied on to pummel community organizers, unionists, and anyone else who poses a threat to corporate interests.

With SAP's, subsidy rules, and other measures that inhibit community growth and development, the FTAA will drastically widen the distance between the rich and the poor. This will likely prompt an outcry from the mistreated working classes in poor Latin American countries. The new military, the corporate global military, will respond with "extreme prejudice," keeping consumers safe, fat and happy while the few halfway conscious people left will be slaughtered. Perhaps New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman said it best: "McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the builder of the F-15."

Corporate Takeover

What's happening in the world right now is this: corporations are being granted greater rights than individuals and even governments. The free market system is spiraling out of control, and if we do not do something about it, we will not have a sustainable future. Period.

U.S. President George "Dubya" Bush and Mexican President Vincente Fox are both avid supporters of globalization, and are trying to push the FTAA two years ahead of schedule (to be implemented by 2003).

Protests Work

I'm sure most people, who have been taught their entire lives to take the easy road, will gladly declare the situation hopeless, falling back into their cynicism armchair and pretending to be against global corporate domination, all while perpetuating the system of silence that makes stuff like this possible.

The fact is, recent anti-globalist protests have accomplished a lot, and are probably the only examples of "democracy in action" we're seen in the last few decades. In 1995 and '97, a grassroots campaign defeated the Fast Track negotiating agreement, which would have allowed then-President Clinton to broker international trade deals, with no regulation from outside parties like Congress. As mentioned before, the 1999 protests in Seattle defeated the MAI, which the FTAA negotiators are trying to snake into their agreement through the investment policy.