Tom Friedman: If We Don't Sign The TPP Agreement, The World Will Be Overtaken By ISIS, Anarchy And China
from the who-said-what-now? dept
Famed NY Times columnist Tom Friedman is pretty widely mocked for his ridiculous platitudes that are designed to sound smart (or, more directly, to make readers think that Tom Friedman is smarter than you). But, outside of corporate boardrooms and elite politicians, it seems plenty of people recognize that Friedman's musings don't make much sense. There's even a Thomas Friedman OpEd Generator that does a pretty good job, showing how formulaic his articles are.The key element in a Tom Friedman piece is to take some basic, simplified conventional wisdom, and try to gussy it up so that it sounds really profound. Often, this means ignoring all of the nuances and complexity behind the simple idea. A decade ago, he turned this into a whole book, The World is Flat, about globalization and how it was changing the world. He wasn't wrong, but his insights weren't particularly insightful or useful. Furthermore, he's so wedded to his thesis, that he still fails to realize that he was focused on a very exaggerated view of things, without understanding all of the related forces and consequences of what he was selling.
Given the premise of that book (and he's apparently working on a followup), it's little surprise that he's now stepped up to defend the TPP in his NY Times column space. Of course, he's going to do that, because he has a kneejerk reaction to defend "free trade deals" based on his book -- and he doesn't even seem to recognize that the TPP isn't really about free trade, other than at the margins. At least his colleague, Paul Krugman, seemed to immediately recognize that the TPP couldn't possibly help much on trade (because most trade barriers are already gone), and after talking to lots of folks realized that the TPP was likely dangerous.
Friedman, on the other hand, insists it's necessary, because without it... ISIS wins. Or something like that. Honestly, it's hard to parse out what he's actually saying because the broad meaningless platitudes just take over:
Because these deals are not just about who sets the rules. They’re about whether we’ll have a rule-based world at all. We’re at a very plastic moment in global affairs — much like after World War II. China is trying to unilaterally rewrite the rules. Russia is trying to unilaterally break the rules and parts of both the Arab world and Africa have lost all their rules and are disintegrating into states of nature. The globe is increasingly dividing between the World of Order and the World of Disorder.From there, he wanders through random musings about the collapse of civilization in the Middle East that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with a trade agreement concerning countries in the Pacific Rim. Then he magically brings it back around to the TPP by arguing "something something
When you look at it from Europe — I’ve been in Germany and Britain the past week — you see a situation developing to the south of here that is terrifying. It is not only a refugee crisis. It’s a civilizational meltdown: Libya, Yemen, Syria and Iraq — the core of the Arab world — have all collapsed into tribal and sectarian civil wars, amplified by water crises and other environmental stresses.
What does all this have to do with trade deals? With rising disorder in the Middle East and Africa — and with China and Russia trying to tug the world their way — there has never been a more important time for the coalition of free-market democracies and democratizing states that are the core of the World of Order to come together and establish the best rules for global integration for the 21st century, including appropriate trade, labor and environmental standards. These agreements would both strengthen and more closely integrate the market-based, rule-of-law-based democratic and democratizing nations that form the backbone of the World of Order.What's amusing is that just paragraphs above, Friedman talks about the importance of "bottom-up communities" -- and yet here he seems to be saying that the big countries have to do the exact opposite and create top down order. And what kind of "order" is this? As far as I now, Tom Friedman doesn't have access to the text of the TPP because President Obama refuses to make it public.
So, as far as I can summarize, Friedman's argument is that "The Middle East is turning to anarchy, so the rest of the world needs to create strict authoritarian rules." Why? Because if we don't, China will. Because....
As Obama told his liberal critics Friday: If we abandon this effort to expand trade on our terms, “China, the 800-pound gorilla in Asia will create its own set of rules,” signing bilateral trade agreements one by one across Asia “that advantage Chinese companies and Chinese workers and ... reduce our access ... in the fastest-growing, most dynamic economic part of the world.” But if we get the Pacific trade deal done, “China is going to have to adapt to this set of trade rules that we’ve established.” If we fail to do that, he added, 20 years from now we’ll “look back and regret it.”So, wait, now it won't be ISIS and anarchy we need to be afraid of, but China and its own rules? This entire piece makes no sense at all.
Meanwhile, actual experts in trade, like Simon Lester at Cato (who obviously is also a big supporter of free trade, but actually understands these issues), note that the whole "if we don't make the rules, China will" argument makes no sense in the real world.
And here we see yet another reason why the negotiators have made sure to keep the TPP a secret. This way, people who only vaguely think they know what "trade agreements" are about can project whatever they want on to them. And thus, magically, a "trade agreement" concerning countries in the Pacific Rim that the public can't see magically saves the world from an ISIS takeover and Chinese-made rules that aren't likely to actually show up.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: free trade, isis, order, rules, tom friedman, tpp, trade, trade agreements
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
A nickel for that ISIS connection. Picture T.P.P. with an ominous logo (SHIELD like) and Samuel Goddamn L Jackson in front of it staring at you whispering in menacing tonne: "If TPP dies, terrorists win! And China."
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
If we don't give up our liberty, the hyperboles will win!
Oh the humanity! Won't someone think of the gun-wielding, church-going, female mudflap silhouette admiring, pickup-truck driving (white, middle class, male) children?!?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
globalization
We are not globalized in any meaningful sense of the word.
You cannot travel freely anywhere, you cannot exchange currencies without risk, salaries and prices are not even close to matching up at all, and rules and laws of other lands make no sense and are written to the whims of dickheadtators.
If you stay something stupid that is legal in your land and then dumb enough to travel to that land, then you might deserve the anal reaming you get, however... just wait until they can just come to you for redress of grievances.
Are you sure you want globalization? The power for someone from another country to find fault with you and have legal recourse to fuck your world out?
Humans are stupid... proof is history!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
It's stupid crap like this that makes me want to support the development of electric vehicles and the Hyperloop project. The sooner we can make oil irrelevant to the modern economy, the sooner we can do what we should have done a hundred years ago and quarantine that entire part of the world until they've finished working out their own problems and demonstrated that they're ready to finally join their grown up brothers and sisters in the civilized world.
Ugh.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
The world has always been disordered, and adopting a huge, unknown law written by shadowy industry lobbyists probably isn't going to help.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Goes to show
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: If we don't give up our liberty, the hyperboles will win!
Ah ha, hahaha, haha, ha! Ten thousand fewer ignorant, credulous, apathetic morons like that a day would be a great start.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
I would go so far as to say that his article is mostly left in religious territory.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
This guy should write for SNL
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Such strange lands...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Free Trade
"I was speaking out in Minnesota — my hometown, in fact — and a guy stood up in the audience, said, 'Mr. Friedman, is there any free trade agreement you’d oppose?' I said, 'No, absolutely not.' I said, 'You know what, sir? I wrote a column supporting the CAFTA, the Caribbean Free Trade initiative. I didn’t even know what was in it. I just knew two words: free trade.'"
http://www.cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/shock-of-the-century-thomas-friedman-supports-the-t rans-pacific-partnership
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Every generation shares two delusions
reminded me of the old truism that "every generation thinks that it invented sex and that it is the last one before the collapse of civilization".
I think Friedman never pulled himself out of that delusional thinking.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
I'd also love to see the classified "interpretation" of the TPP (a la the PATRIOT Act) that is no doubt making the rounds to a very limited few.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
all i have to say is ......
there gonna get you or is it ....oh wait
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Free Trade
Yes, that's right, human rights don't get a look in here, they tend to disregard them when the free trade card is played. No they won't do anything to stop you selling slaves, their labor helps to keep costs down, which helps consumers, apparently.
There's a columnist called Tom Friedman who can explain it to you if you like. Many of the most powerful and influential Westerners are really into the free trade idea, you see, and will accept anything with a Free Trade label on no matter what's in it. Everything you need to know about this is in his latest New York Times op-ed. That's right. So, what do you think?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
The lies abound about tPP
The author pillaries Tom Friedman, a wall street sycophant whose intent is to force you low life Real Americans into submission. That is the real purpose. These elites don't respect you, they don't like you and they have developed plans to slowly, inch by inch, enslave you.
Like the classic frog tale and boiling water, we are slowly being cooked. When we find out, it will already have been too late.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
The lies abound about tPP
The author pillaries Tom Friedman, a wall street sycophant whose intent is to force you low life Real Americans into submission. That is the real purpose. These elites don't respect you, they don't like you and they have developed plans to slowly, inch by inch, enslave you.
Like the classic frog tale and boiling water, we are slowly being cooked. When we find out, it will already have been too late.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Friedman's OpEd was just the opening salvo.
How many dissenting voices do they need to hear before they begin to question their assumptions? Or (rhetorical), is the NYT just handling the marketing for the administration?
I thought it put Friedman's dumbth nicely into perspective.
[ link to this | view in thread ]