Carol, I love your heart and desire to see things from both perspectives. Same with Alex's "levelling of the field" comments. But this doesn't take a massive rethink, nor does it require a rebuild. The solutions are fairly easy to see.

First off, I reject completely and finally this notion that somehow we have to provide more rewards for the "job creators". The Entrepreneurial advocates have foisted a perception that somehow if we don't continue to enhance the rewards for risk taking that they will go elsewhere because they have this God given right to make ever increasing amounts of money. And if we just continue to let them do so, with fewer people making ever larger amounts that it will somehow benefit the rest of us. We have seen this before in the turnings of the great wheel. It has been called by a number of names. We have seen it in the paternalistic aristocracies, and in the era of the Rockefellers. And it is pure, unmitigated bullshit. The greatest economic engine the world has ever seen was created by passing laws that protected the average persons health, the environment, and giving these workers the ability to organize for their betterment. In doing so, the marketplace was created that the world tried to emulate. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on perspective, the political structure caused monied interests to be able to hijack it and weaken these selfsame organizations and start the gap in earnings to widen in ways that would make John D. Rockefeller to gush with envy. That gap has widen by a multiplier of 200 in 21 years.

So that's my criticism/analysis. What are my solutions. It goes like this. First off, a perceptual piece. Passing common laws between countries is not the same as taking over the countries. We call them treaties. This philosophy requires people between countries to desire a common economy, with the benefit of bringing the partners up to, or above the level of the economy you are trying to emulate and improve. This means that if we just take Canada, Mexico, and the USA, we must analyze what makes it work, who has the most beneficial laws to make that work, and then incorporate them into a treaty. I am saying that labor laws should be roughly the same with the same rights. I am saying that environmental laws and targets should be the same. I am saying that Equal Employment Opportunity Laws should be roughly the same. In this manner, workers are not penalized for having safe workplaces, free of environmental hazards, and with a democratic voice in the negotiations on their working conditions, rates of pay and hours of employment.

Mick