Will Wilkinson/Cato openly promotes North American Union

Posted Wed, Jan 9, 2008 at 8:44 am
A tactic used by those who seek to deny that powerful forces are pushing for a North American Union is first to deny that such a plan exists, and then to say something like, "but, if it did, would it be such a bad thing?"

One of those trying to retail the idea of a NAU is Will Wilkinson of the Cato Institute, who, speaking on the radio show Marketplace, says:
There are some who believe a grave threat to American sovereignty looms over the horizon. A shadowy cabal, they say, is planning a massive "NAFTA superhighway," a new North American currency, and a common market in goods and labor. It will all culminate in an E.U.-like North American Union.

It turns out this is mostly fantasy. But the fantasy is more dream than nightmare. Because some aspects of a North American Union would leave Americans and our neighbors both richer and freer.

...The best solution to America's immigration problem is not a wall or a new crackdown on the hiring of undocumented workers. It's NAFTA's unfinished business: a common North American labor market. It's illogical and impractical to create a single North American economy that integrates markets for goods, capital, raw materials, services, and information but tries to keep labor markets divided...
Obviously, all the arguments against the NAU scheme apply, including the fact that subjecting U.S. citizens to decisions by Mexican and Canadian bureaucrats, undermining the U.S. Constitution, and giving the corrupt Mexican government even more political power inside the U.S. are the opposite of freedom.

Click his name above to read about a Reason Magazine article written by Wilkinson that closely tracked a satire I'd written a couple weeks earlier and sent to that magazine as a real proposal.

Tags: 
reason magazine
mexican government
north american union
will wilkinson

Comments

petty bourgeois (not verified)

Wed, 01/09/2008 - 23:03

Why would anyone want to consolidate wealth and power with secret societies pulling the strings? This is just tinfoil hat wearing stuff (/me sarcasm). Even if they did, it would be good for all of us to have such a consolidation of wealth and power into the hands of a few, right?

eh (not verified)

Thu, 01/10/2008 - 01:02

_Because SOME ASPECTS..._ What about other aspects? Maybe the tradeoffs suck and overall it would be a very bad deal? If I was to cut off my leg with a chainsaw I could probably get some kind of disability payments.

amanda (not verified)

Thu, 01/10/2008 - 04:21

Yeah, the benefit touted is always economic or some nebulous 'efficiency'. Never a mention of the little downside of relegating the 'supreme law of the land' (the Constitution) to subordinate status. You'd think our system of government has been a total failure since throwing your country away strikes them as a 'slam dunk' choice. The economic-only frame is highly offensive to me and makes me wary--these 'countries/borders are a pain' types always seem to have the most undemocratic pipe dreams (like 'guest workers') yet they say their vision promotes freedom. How exactly is a centralized continental government which moves power that much further away from the people good for democracy and freedom?

Pete (not verified)

Thu, 01/10/2008 - 05:16

Will Wilkinson is genuine globalist-type a-hole. He named his blog after a phrase used by Ludwig Wittgenstein, as if Wittgenstein would find a SINGLE sentence that guy wrote agreeable.