Harry Pollard wrote: > I'll try again. Free trade means that a country removes the > tariffs, quotas, and dumping laws that prevent goods > entering the country. > > That's all.
In practice, that's not all. Free trade also means the "opening" (as in "open season") of a country to transnational corporations, to destroy local smaller companies and to exploit local resources at the expense of locals. > You seem to have great difficulty understanding such a > simple and reasonable idea. You seem to have great difficulty understanding the implications and collateral damages of such a simplistic and unreasonable idea. > Such things as health regulations aren't touched. Why should > they be? They are touched, by privatizing and "opening" the healthcare sector. One effect recently seen in an "opened" country was that a wave of doctors was flowing in from abroad, leading to a ban on new medical practices (even for local young doctors!) and a general increase in health insurance fees for everyone. > Tariffs, quotas, and dumping laws exist to protect the > people you quite rightly call "coercers". Removing them > takes away some of their power to coerce. A classical half-truth. > Not all of it - major coercive powers still exist. All free > trade does is to increase the size of the cake. For some (mainly those abroad), but it decreases the size of the cake for many more. > How this > larger cake is distributed is another matter. It is better > to take things one at a time. No, it is better to see the whole picture and recognize that overall, things get worse. > Being against this larger cake is a Luddite idea - just as > they essentially tried to limit production by breaking > machines so do protectionists try to limit production with > their "bought and paid for" legislation. Luddism is a conflict among producers. Free trade is a predator concept. > The neo-cons, whom you dislike, are with you on this. They > want managed trade as fervently as their socialist friends. > (They may not be friends, but their views on managed trade > is the same.) The neo-cons want to maximize externalization of costs, the rat-race to the bottom, and that the biggest bully wins, like you do. I want the opposite. > We Liberals have fighting against the Conservatives and > Socialists for well over a century and always socialists and > conservatives have adopted the same policy - though with > different names. _3_ different names for predator-class concepts. > We have been fighting for Liberty and Justice for All. Sounds like Ronald Reagan. --- > I don't understand your statement: > > " what you call real free trade would end up just the same > -- with the biggest bully coercing everyone else at their > peril . . . " > > How is that possible? In the absence of rules, the biggest bully wins. Rules are necessary to protect the small ones. If the rules are made by bullies, that's also bad, but not a reason to abolish rules in general. The rules have to be defined by the commons. Chris ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SpamWall: Mail to this addy is deleted unread unless it contains the keyword "igve". _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
