Comments on: Protectionism: Peston provokes but gets it right

By: Charlie Marks

Charlie Marks — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 22:25:22 +0000

For sure, if a rescuing jobs means Chinese ownership – fine. But cooperative ownership? Finer!

By: Big economy protectionism is the “lump of labour” fallacy gone global | ToUChstone blog: A public policy blog from the TUC

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 17:37:34 +0000

[...] of labour” fallacy gone global Posted at 6:37 pm on 12 Mar 09 by Nigel Adam’s opposition to big economy protectionism has proved controversial in some quarters. Yet it seems to me that protectionism is the mirrow image [...]

By: Adam

Adam — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 09:50:31 +0000

But Owen hits the nail on the head. When thousands of jobs and livelihoods are at risk, this great movement of ours can be very pragmatic. And rightly so.

By: Charlie Marks

Charlie Marks — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 04:21:50 +0000

But hang on a minute: are we really saying that the aim of this great movement of ours is to have foreign rather than domestic capitalists owning large swathes of the economy? Trade, like markets, should be regulated. To parrot the capitalists defence of free trade is to do a disservice to the union movement – they have plenty of money to hire propagandists of their own, let them harp on about free trade and free markets.

We should be looking to popularize cooperative forms of ownership by workers and consumers. The building societies haven’t had to be bailed out by the government – the ex-building societies have; workers cooperatives don’t union-bust or get involved in blacklisting workers…

By: Owen Tudor

Owen Tudor — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 23:51:19 +0000

Regarding Robert Peston’s argument that the Chinese should buy up western assets: when Rover was faced with complete closure a few years ago, the then TGWU mounted a campaign precisely to persuade a Chinese motor company to buy the marque to save jobs (in the end, a different Chinese car company bought Rover, with far fewer jobs saved). So this is not completely groundbreaking new thinking….