Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Dani Rodrik discusses the growing public opposition to new corporate-dominated trade deals based on the lessons we've learned from previous ones:

Instead of decrying people’s stupidity and ignorance in rejecting trade deals, we should try to understand why such deals lost legitimacy in the first place. I’d put a large part of the blame on mainstream elites and trade technocrats who pooh-poohed ordinary people’s concerns with earlier trade agreements.

The elites minimized distributional concerns, though they turned out to be significant for the most directly affected communities. They oversold aggregate gains from trade deals, though they have been smallish since at least NAFTA. They said sovereignty would not be diminished though it clearly was in some instances. They claimed democratic principles would not be undermined, though they are in places. They said there’d be no social dumping though there clearly is at times. They advertised trade deals (and continue to do so) as “free trade” agreements, even though Adam Smith and David Ricardo would turn over in their graves if they read, say, any of the TPP chapters.

And because they failed to provide those distinctions and caveats, now trade gets tarred with all kinds of ills even when it’s not deserved. If the demagogues and nativists making nonsensical claims about trade are getting a hearing, it is trade’s cheerleaders that deserve some of the blame.

One more thing. The opposition to trade deals is no longer solely about income losses. The standard remedy of compensation won’t be enough — even if carried out. It’s about fairness, loss of control, and elites’ loss of credibility. It hurts the cause of trade to pretend otherwise.

- Scott Sinclair and Stuart Trew point out why progressives have reason to oppose the CETA, while Craig Scott rightly questions the Libs' spin on it And Gareth Hutchins reports on Canada's experience with challenges to democratic legislation under NAFTA as a cautionary tale for other countries.

- Jeremy Gilbert writes about the need for a social movement (going far beyond the partisan political scene) to provide a meaningful alternative to neoliberalism.

- Bob Mackin reports that the Vancouver International Airport Authority's CEO is highlighting the dangers of a selloff of airport assets. And Bill Curry notes that cities are raising important questions about the Libs' musings about diverting direct infrastructure funding toward an "infrastructure bank".

- Finally, James Wilt examines the utter incoherence of Brad Wall's excuse for a climate change plan.