Oligopolizing Freedom: the Social Reality of “Free” Trade and the “Free” Flow of Information

     Arguing against “freedom” now is like arguing against cuddly puppies, sunsets, and unique, beautiful snowflakes.  It is anathema to a progressive perspective.  But that is because freedom has been co-opted by political rhetoric.  Rather than express autonomy and lack of constraints, freedom has come to include particular social, economic, and political implications which are not readily apparent, but which ineluctably detract from the instantiation of the very term which houses them.  So I do not take issue with freedom; what I do take issue with is the couching of oligopolistic capitalism, the stifling of cultures, and the suppression of individual liberty through the selective dissemination of information within the fallacious claim that it is all in the service of freedom.   Two inextricably-related instances of this arise in the rhetoric of agricultural “free” trade and of “supporters of the ‘free’ flow of information” (Schiller 71).

From the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, May 2005:

Farmers in the United States, Canada, and Mexico all benefit from NAFTA.

• Two-way agricultural trade between the United States and Mexico increased 149 percent since 1993.  Two-way agricultural trade between the United States and Canada increased 112 percent since 1993.

Although U.S. imports have grown under NAFTA, so have U.S. exports.  Without NAFTA, the United States would have lost these expanded export opportunities.

In 2004, exports of numerous key U.S. commodities set records to both countries:

• Canada:  fresh vegetables, fresh fruits, snack foods, poultry meat, pet foods, vegetable oils, planting seeds, breakfast cereals, tree nuts, nursery products, rice, soybean meal, processed fruits and vegetables, juices and eggs.

• Mexico:  red meats, processed fruits and vegetables, poultry meat, fresh vegetables, tree nuts, wheat, soybean meal, animal fats, dairy products and rice.  This broad cross section of commodities suggests the benefits of NAFTA are widely distributed across U.S. agriculture.

Import competition has increased under NAFTA for some commodities, a not unexpected development, as trade barriers begin to come down and trade is subject to open marketing conditions.  As the largest of the NAFTA countries and with a booming economy, it is not surprising that U.S. imports from Canada have grown strongly, providing American consumers with a broader array of competitively priced, high-quality products.[1]

     

Although the above is only an excerpt, the FAS maintains an implicit theme in its explication of the benefits of the North American Free Trade Agreement: that if the United States benefits from the agreement, so too, must everyone else.  The U.S.'s supposed benefits, however, are predicated on a few particular economic occurrences and are not in any way attached to commensurate benefits for either Canada or Mexico.  Is it enough that Americans are provided with "a broader array of competitively priced, high-quality products" (FAS)?  Should we stop there, or should we read  between the lines just a little more? 

Otero, Scott, and Gilbreth do indeed read between the lines in their essay on neoliberalized global trade.  In particular, they explain the social consequences for the actual people of Mexico, something the FAS, in its emphasis on U.S. economic benefits, neglects to address.  For Mexican peasants and rural farmers, “free” trade means trading according to the dictates of the country with the most money, and this in turn, means shifting their own agricultural system to suit such trade.  One such consequence is “unemployment in cities that are unable to provide enough jobs for those expelled from the modernizing agricultural sector” (Otero, et al. 255).  Further, what the FAS claims as a benefit (at least for the United States, but presumably for Mexico as well) is the massive increase in U.S. exports of certain foodstuffs, the details of which are cited above. 

Otero, et al. give the lie to the social implications of this factoid, however, when they delineate the real-life consequences of such expansive and “free” trade. The United States must create a demand in Mexico for its products, and it does so by “promoting modern agriculture and a U.S.-style diet [which] has involved the displacement of subsistence crops like corn and beans, grown for human consumption” in favor of growing feed for livestock.  This conveniently creates a demand for foreign food products, and the United States can step right in and provide that.  Consequently, “Mexican consumption patterns are still moving in the direction of greater amounts of meat and dairy products, and fewer local grains and products” ),  while Americans are eating increasing amounts of whole grains and low-fat and –cholesterol products (Otero, et al. 256.  Here, “free” trade effectively constrains and shapes the direction of an entire group of people physically and culturally. 

Dan Schiller presents a striking parallel in his analysis of digital capitalism and the political and economic interests in the “free” flow of information.  The overt message is that if information flows freely (without government dictating what is available and how it can be accessed), the people will be able to democratically access information via advanced technology and decide for themselves how they will explore and with what they will engage.  Such a proposition is incontrovertible.  I certainly do not want my government, which purportedly serves me, to dictate my access to knowledge and information.  What is not made explicit, though, is that in place of the government, the “free” flow of information is actually the very strategic dissemination of very specific information via very constrained points of access.  Such limitations are enforced by corporate interests who are now “free” to use their expansive financial means and business alliances to package information in ways which sustain and increase their profits. 

Just as free trade in practice limits trade for those who must now play by one, highly unbalanced, set of rules, so too does the notion of freely flowing information mask the diminishing availability of democratically accessible information. Further, both of these “freedoms” serve each other: with the not-so-free flow of information, the few who benefit from free trade can bolster their dominance by manipulating how the system is viewed, and by capitalizing on an imbalanced trade system, they maintain the wherewithal to continue shaping the consumption of information.  Freedom in the service of the few at the expense of the many is not freedom.  Instead it is more closely aligned with “free reign” (as opposed to free rein), and if our grade-school history books have taught us anything, there are dangerous social consequences behind the exercise of free reign.

Works Cited

Otero, Gerardo, Steffanie Scott, and Chris Gilbreth.  “New Technologies, Neoliberalism, and

Social Polarization in Mexico’s Agriculture.” Cutting Edge: Technology, Information,

Capitalism and Social Revolution.  Ed. Jim Davis, et al.  London: Verso, 1997.  253-270.  Print.

Schiller, Dan.  Digital Capitalism: Networking the Global Market System.  Cambridge: MIT

Press, 2000. Print.

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[1] “FAS Backgrounder: Benefits of NAFTA.” USDA Foreign Agricultural service.  May 2005.  www.fas.usda.gov.  24 October 2012.  Web.