Another trade toon

Maybe I should start a collection. (Incidentally, Peter Vale’s publishing a book about cartoons and South Africa’s international relations.) Anyway, this cartoon is from bilaterals.org. Sorry about the small size.

Labour and the ‘New Protectionism’?

Apologies for the hiatus. What’s been going in since I last posted? British readers will not have failed to notice the so-called wildcat strikes in protest at the hiring of foreign labour in preference to British workers.

The strikes were almost immediately co-opted by the British National Party, with BNP vans parked next to strikers. The British Wildcats website would also seem to be a front. All of this brings up a lot of questions about protectionism. Indeed, labour is the last great frontier of globalisation-as-liberalisation. Goods can be traded (relatively) freely, as can money. Yet restrictions on the movement of labour are everywhere. I’m not saying whether this is a good or a bad thing. Obviously there’s a happy medium. See chief trade unionist Brendan Barber’s article in The Guardian.

Moving away from labour per se, the FT has a special in depth section on what it’s calling ‘the new protectionism’. As I have said before, self-fulfilling prophecies should be our biggest concern. On that note British cabinet member Ed Balls has said that the current recession is to be the worst in a century.