Yesterday, the South Korean Parliament finally passed the "Korus," better known as the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. This piece of legislation was expected to pass weeks before; however, ongoing protests about fears of rising income inequality and youth unemployment swayed the political attitudes in Korea towards the left.
One of the interesting things about the passing of this legislation was the surprise vote held to pass the legislation. The Grand National Party (GNP) in Korea actually called a surprise vote to catch its opponents, the Democratic Labour Party, off guard. In a last attempt to sabotage the unfair vote, the Democratic Labour Party actually set off a canister of tear gas inside the chamber. If you want to see a video of the incident, click here.
This makes me start to wonder what the U.S. would be like if we could call house/senate votes without the presence of a party. Sure, we'd be able to get much more legislation passed;however, the legislation, as in the case of Korea, would only be the desires of one party. No compromise would be included. This, in some strange way makes me feel grateful that we have a legislative system that is in a sense slow at times. At least I know that in our Congress, the legislation is the result of compromise not of slim-majority ruling.
On a secondary note, does anyone have anything to say about the South Korea-U.S. trade agreement? I know that there has already been a post about it in the past. While this free trade agreement has aroused quite a bit of protesting in South Korea, it is to be noted that the dynamics of this free trade agreement and the dynamics of NAFTA are different. South Korea's economic production differs greatly from that of the NAFTA agreement states and thus the implications of this FTA will be different from that of NAFTA.
5 comments:
I think that thr Korean free trade agreement can be viewed as both good and bad. Bad in the aspect as Andrew stated-the possible income inequality and youth unemployment. With the free trade agreement there is a good chance that the result will be cheaper labor values ultimately leading to loss of higher wage jobs. In fact since NAFTA was signed, hundreds of thousands of jobs have been lost. NAFTA is believed to also be the main contributor to rising income inequality, suppression of real wages for production workers, weakening of workers' collective bargaining powers and the inability to organize unions. I think that the agreement is also bad because of the surprise vote with the Democratic Labour Party, tensions between Korea and the United States may become even more strained and a new vengeance may evolve as a result of it. The retaliation with tear gas certainly will add to mounting tension too. In addition, the free trade agreements we make with other countries, on the holsitic specturm harm other countries besides whom we make them with. In various cases workers in other countries have been exploited, and the environment in other countries has been defiled. On the flip side though this can be beneficial for us. Along with the exclusion of expensive and inefficient trade barriers, such as tariffs and quotas, inherently leads to more efficient trade of consumer goods. The result of those things is an increased volume of U.S. sales, and perhaps even a boost in our economy.
I agree with Kimi's point about NAFTA, but one must also look at the fact that due to NAFTA the overall cost of goods is lower and as a result the goods are available to a larger percentage of the population.
However, I must say that as I was reading the blog post, I was reminded of Fed. 10 and the specifically of the dangers of majority factions. This brings to light the benefits of having a more fair, yet slow system.
I agree with Andrew and Sophia on the point that by respecting the interests of different parties, our current legislative system can be slow at times but is definitely more respectable and compromises the pursuits and goals of various factions. In a sense, it is also much more effective and efficient in the long run. Because we take everyone's opinion (at least nominally) into account when passing legislation in the first place, we will face a smaller possibility that these legislation will backfire in the future in the form of rebelling factions. These equivocations should be settled with the passing of the legislation, and if that entails a long process, then so be it.
While I have to agree with everyone that it does make our system look a little better despite it's speed, your post makes me sad about the worldwide political culture.
The differences between political parties have gotten so bad that we now have to use surprise votes, tear gas, mudslinging, spin & other amoral practices just to get our voices heard? Seriously? That is so sad.
I know I sound like a total peace-loving hippie when I say this, but isn't it about time that we all stop fighting so hard to be heard & learn to listen & compromise? Is it really that hard? I'm so sick and tired of hearing about all the debates & arguments over the most insignificant things. Everybody just needs to shut up & work together.
Maybe our founding fathers were right about human nature. Maybe all this behavior will never change & the best system is a slow system. Goodness, I hope that's not true.
I dont like the idea of having a single party deciding whether or not is good for the entire nation, there isnt a way of representing the wants and desires of those who re in the minority, there would be no compromises, just a pass fail system, that would inevitably cause some good ideas to get tossed out the window. By having more than one party we can edit legislatures and get them to benefit all, or at least benefit more than just a majority, because we would not want to vote things passed that is only good for 51% of the population
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