"Sanders’ policies are popular, mainstream and the future" (Bill Curry article, at Salon)

The issue of the day is “trade.” I’m amazed when economists invoke the theories of David Ricardo as if nothing’s changed in the 200 years since his passing. Ricardo’s theory of comparative advantage asserted that free trade always results in a net benefit to the trading partners since each sells goods on which it enjoys a natural advantage: climate, raw materials, labor supply, etc. But when jobs cross borders in nanoseconds the advantages everyone seeks are low wages and weak governments. Somebody must tell the neoliberals this is no longer about who has the best weather to grow bananas in. In fact, it is no longer about trade. It is about whether democracy rules commerce–or commerce rules democracy. It’s a subject Sanders knows well. Clinton appears clueless.

This is the debate we need: how best to turn back the impersonal tide of globalization and begin conscious creation of a new, intentional economy. This isn’t the debate Clinton or the media is prepared to have. But it’s the one the country urgently desires, and one progressives can win. Like the polls, the throngs flowing to Sanders’ events and the small-dollar donations to his campaign attest to the ripeness of the moment. The real proof’s in the power of ideas.

William E. Curry, Jr. (born December 17, 1951, in Hartford, Connecticut) has been a two-time Democratic nominee for Governor of Connecticut and a White House advisor in the administration of Bill Clinton.

Curry wrote a political column for the Hartford Courant in Hartford, Connecticut.[1] On August 26, 2007 he endorsed a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.[2] He is also a frequent guest on National Public Radio. He was also frequently on Colin McEnroe's afternoon radio show on WTIC.