The slide in real income since 1973 has been described byrnsome economists as the longest in American history. AveragernWeekly Earnings (a Department of Labor statistic that coversrn80 percent of employees, but excludes physicians and executives)rnhave been declining steadily since 1975, and the fall isrneven steeper if increased Social Security rates and higher salesrntaxes are taken into consideration.rnOn the other hand, while the great majority (the percentagerndepends on which calculations one accepts) of American familiesrnhave suffered an economic decline, the top one percentrnhave gained tremendously. “So what?” sav the free-traders.rnHere’s what: America, as Rush Limbaugh reminds his listenersrnevery day, is already torn apart by the politics of envy. Wideningrnincome disparity is an open invitation to liberal Democratsrnto take over the middle classes. Simply on the practical level ofrngetting votes and winning elections. Republican strategists actrnas if they are part of an insane plot to alienate the Reagan Democrats:rntheir vision of free trade and open borders has cost themrnthe White House twice, and here in Illinois it looks as if the firstrnDemocratic governor in over 20 years will be Glenn Poshard, arnBuchananist who opposes abortion, gun control, unrestrictedrnimmigration, and free trade.rnThe income gap is turning into a chasm, but at least that toprnone percent of economic winners are nominally Americans.rnThe real scandal of free trade is the rise of transnational corporationsrnwhich now dominate world trade (according to thernWorld Bank, 70 percent of international trade is in the hand ofrntransnationals). In 1990, the top 500 transnational controlledrntwo-thirds of world trade, and almost 40 percent of world tradernis carried out within transnationals themselves. In fact, the toprn15 have incomes greater than the GDPs of 120 countries.rnSome of these transnationals are not so much corporations asrnpirate states with no loyalty to any of the countries in which theyrnoperate. Some years ago, a chairman of NCR said he did notrnworry about the balance of trade because NCR was not anrnAmerican company, only a transnational that happened to bernlocated in the U.S., and both Sam Francis and Pat Buchananrncan cite a string of similar anti-national platitudes uttered byrn”American” CEOs.rnBut let American-based transnationals have a problem —arnrevolution in the Persian Gulf or labor violence at a plant—andrnthey will come screaming to Washington for help from thernfriends in Congress they have so generously supported. Havingrntheir cake and eating it, these pirate states are not only protectedrnby the laws and the Armed Forces of the United States, butrnthey are also given privileged access to our consumer markets.rnWhen free-traders hear these arguments, they will either findrna million reasons to show how we really are better off—freer tornchoose one pair of cheap shoes over another—or, if they arerncandid, they might tell you that frankly they do not give a damn.rn”The world is shrinking,” they will say, “and we can no longerrnafford to care more about our neighbors than about strangers onrnthe other side of the globe.” For them, man does live by breadrnalone, and in this age of packaging and preservatives it does notrnmatter whether the Wonder Bread is manufactured in Maryland,rnin Mexico, or on the moon.rnLooking down fi-om the moon, James Bovard has concludedrnthat religion and nations, as well as history, are bunk: “Ourrngreat grand-children may look back at the trade wars of the 20thrncenturs’ with the same contempt that many people today look atrnthe religious wars of the 17th century—as a senseless conflictrnover issues that grown men should not fight about.” What thisrnbit of lunacy comes down to is an unreasoning worship of freerntrade coupled with contempt for other religions as issues “thatrngrown men should not fight about.” I suppose this is why freetradersrntake a similar view of immigration. If America becomesrna Muslim or a Buddhist country, what is the difference? Sornlong as the only real God is Mammon and the only real nationrnis the great international marketplace that makes no distinctionsrnbetween peoples or nations.rnIn Trade there is no East or West,rnIn Trade no South and North,rnBut one great multi-nationalrnThroughout the whole wide earth.rnPols on the take and bureaucratsrnShall comfy nest-eggs findrnW-lien they have knit the golden cordrnTo strangle all mankind.rnThe real heart of the trade debate is not income or pricesrnbut sovereignty. The free trade agreements entered intornby the United States not only violate our Constitution—a smallrnthing, perhaps, since our own government does that everyrnday—but they also erode our sovereignty. This is obvious fromrnthe global apparatus of rigged trade established by NAFTA andrnGATT, but the World Trade Organization set up in the lastrnround of GATT alarmed even some knee-jerk free-traders.rnThe WTO is a secret organization whose meetings arernclosed to the press, and it has the right to settle trade disputes betweenrnthe U.S. and other nations and the power to enforce itsrndecisions. If two nations have a disagreement over trade, thernDispute Settlements Panel appointed by the WTO can strikerndown any federal or state law that is ruled inconsistent with freerntrade principles. In other words, it will act as an internationalrnsupreme court of trade that supersedes our national and staterncourts and legislatures.rnThe Office of Management and Budget estimates that thernregulations imposed by the most recent GATT phase (Uruguayrnround) will increase the federal deficit by $40 billion over 10rnyears. As Paul Craig Roberts, an honest free-trader, has written:rn”I would prefer my fate to be in the hands of the people —includingrntextile magnates—than in the hands of a bureaucracy,”rnIf Mr. Roberts will some day extend his analysis to the internationalrnwelfare bureaucrats who run IBM and Royal DutchrnPetroleum, he could be Pat Buchanan’s Secretary of Commerce.rnThe trade dispute, as I suggested at the beginning, is notrnabout numbers but about words, and radical free-traders workrnhard to conceal the truth. (Bruce Fein describes their tactics asrna mixture of “glibness and dissembling.”) Free-traders are fondrnof denouncing national (and local) governments for corruption,rninefficiency, stupidity, and here they are clearly on solidrnground. I fully share their opposition to the federal government’srngrowing power to regulate even,’ aspect of our commercialrnlife. I am even willing to agree with them that manyrnAmerican industries —automobile manufacturing, for examplern—may deserve their fate, and economic nationalists mightrnwell consider linking automobile tariffs to across-the-board cutsrnin the salaries of corporate management and the return of jobsrnand factories from Mexico to Detroit.rnBut what would the free-traders substitute for the current corruptrnsystem of competing nations? Not no government, butrnworld government. This is where their radical individualismrn12/CHRONICLESrnrnrn