The TPP and Basketball

One thing I learned  from my untutored reading of Ludwig Wittgenstein was his observation that much of what we do is governed by rules. For example, our languages are rule governed (grammar). Or take basketball. Before you can play basketball, you have to accept a set of rules. The game is a set of rules (plus other unwritten things). There are differences in the rules from one league to the next but no basketball without rules.

If you try to compare basketball with “free basketball” you will discover that there is no such thing as “free basketball.” 

Our markets and our trade activities are also created by sets of rules. Humans decide what the rules will be, but there are always rules. There are no such things as “free markets” or “free trade.” There are just different markets and different kinds of trade.

Also no one I know opposes creating markets. I hear that people opposed to NAFTA or the TPP are opposed to trade. But have you heard anyone say that she opposes trade? What people support or oppose are specific rules set up to govern trade or markets. Glass-Steagall was a New Deal example of a set of rules governing financial activities (before Bill Clinton signed its repeal).  

For me the problem with the TPP is that I don’t trust the people who wrote the new rules. I don’t know enough to judge the impact of the rules on our lives, but. as far as I know, representatives of ordinary working people (labor unions, for example) were left off the committee of corporate types and political appointees who wrote the TPP. NAFTA apparently hurt many American workers. Why should I think that the TPP will be different, when American workers were not represented in the rule-making? If you let corporations write the rules without consulting workers, who do you think will profit from the new rules? Who will get hurt?