ABSTRACT
Does globalism exist? At least one commentator suspects not. In 1999, under the aegis of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Swingline stapler factory relocated from Long Island City, New York to Nogales, Mexico. The distinguished political columnist Lars-Erik Nelson reflected:
Mexicans were not the target customers of Swingline…or of many of the other corporations that shifted production to Mexico. Swingline’s American workers could have afforded to buy the staplers they produced, and no doubt even had need of them. The pathetically poor Mexican workers at Swingline’s new Nogales plant would place staplers far down on their shopping wish list, somewhere behind electricity, plumbing, and floors for their shacks. It is hard to describe as U.S.–Mexican “trade” a transaction that ships an American factory to Mexico so that its products can be imported back to America and produce higher profit margins for the owners….NAFTA [is] not a trade agreement but an investment agreement, one designed to assure the safety of American investment in Mexico rather than to increase exchanges of indigenous Mexican and indigenous American goods. (16)
