TPP: What is liberalization of movement of goods, money and persons?


It means that you cannot go away to work abroad unless you can speak a foreign language.

Masatoshi Takeshita
July 21, 2013


English translation of an excerpt from a Japanese article: Diary of Lawyer in Town – July 20, 2013 –

TPP: What is liberalization of movement of goods, money and persons?

I was impressed by a scene in an NHK TV documentary which was broadcast long time ago.  I’d like to introduce as much as I can recall.

Minokamo City, Gifu Prefecture is a city which has thrived by attracting plants of major consumer-electronics makers.
The last day of closure of Sony with 2,000 workers following Hitachi is shot with camera.
An interviewer asks one middle-aged Japanese woman about her feelings and destination to work.

“I’ll go to Thailand where I have got a job as a telephone operator.”
As the interviewer thinks it is a temporary job and asks:
“When are you going to come home?”
“I have no plan to come home.”

Liberalization of persons goes something like this.
Rather, it is safe to say that TPP is a program intended to sophisticatedly realize the liberalization of persons, goods and money to optimize them for capitals.

NAFTA forced millions of Mexicans to part with farmland due to an influx of cheap corns and to flow into the U.S. as low-wage laborers who are said to be paid 200 JPY per hour.
This deprived millions of Americans of their jobs.
Successive transfer of production bases to Mexico also took away employment from the U.S.
This made it possible to optimize the situation for capitals.

TPP seeks for far more radical liberalization.

The story of the Japanese woman in Minokamo will become common practice for the young of the future.
Is it all right with you?
Tomorrow is the day when it is called in question.

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