Keith Hudson wrote:
>
> Under a different thread, Harry Pollard and I are having what I hope is a
> good-natured argument about economic matters, but there is one thing we are
> in total agreement about. This is that free trade is essential for any sort
> of civilised progress of mankind.
[snip]
> Whatever else may be said about the unique qualities of mankind, the
> activity of trade between two culturally disparate groups -- who may even
> hate each other on other matters -- is certainly one of them.
[snip]
> This persistence of trade, even when outlawed by officaldom and carried out
> at great risk, suggests that it is an instinctive behaviour and we would be
> denying an important part of our human nature to oppose it.
[snip]
I think here as with many important words (and words affect
reality both as forces in the world and also as shapers of what
we understand the world to be like...), we may be calling different
things by the same name to the "benefit" of unbeneficial
factors.
What if anything does the trade between "Muslims
and Serbs would be fighting each other savagely one day, and trading
essential foodstuffs with each other the next" have to do
with global "free trade"? The first is an interaction between
individuals or face-to-face small groups; the latter is
an "Invisible Hand" -- an iron universal law -- operating
to reduce wages across the entire planet to the lowest cost producer's
pay scale and destroying any enterprise (and any
social ordering) which "can't compete", and taking nothing
into account except "the bottom line", not persons, not
natural resources, not pollution, etc. (except, of
course, to the extent that doing anything constructive
about these things "improves" the "bottom line", which
sometimes it can, since if all workers are dead or grossly incapacitated,
nothing
can be produced -- but there's a lot of slack in the system
before those kind of factors need to get taken into account -->
and that's the essence of this global "free trade": taking all the
slack out of all systems, all "room to maneuver" out of
the people's lives).
I would like to propose that there is a third kind of free enterprise
which has more similarity with the first than the second
but still is different from both in being grounded in
what we may honorifically call human freedom. This third
thing is persons exchanging goods (ideas, etc.) with each
other in a setting where all parties can survive quite well without
incurring any serious privation without the trade relation. This
kind of trade alone would truly be free, because all the
parties to it would be free to walk away if they do not
feel it is something they want to continue to do with their
lives.
Thus we have at least 3 things that can be called free trade (in
ascending order of goodness for Everyman -- the little
people of this earth):
(1) A kind of global planned economy in which the
form of planning is to give
free reign to global capitalism (and capitalism
always aims through competition to wipe out
competition) -- something unprecedented in human
history and perhaps beyond the understanding
and control even of Ph.D. economists armed with
supercomputers or world-class economic opportunists
like Donald Trump and the person in Russia who
owns the big television station etc.
(2) People trying to "make out" in difficult
conditions (the kind of things studied by Erving Goffman).
(2a) Traditional markets and bazaars and colonial
small town America, etc. Peacetime trade
among small producers and small-time middle-persons
in relatively low-technology cultures.
(3) Something like a combination of the best of
Periclean Athens and Jeffersonian America.
A peer space for individuals mutually to shine forth
in their individuality in the eyes of persons
they know and respect.
To use the words "free trade" to try to aid and abet the
construction of #1 by a "power elite" commanding
resources on a global scale by referring to #2 (or #2a)
seems to me what some philosophers would call a "category mistake"
(like trying to mold a metal tool in a gaming die, or to
play dice with machinists die-s).
Any attempt to prettify #1 by reference to the ideals of
#3 would be laughable if it was not callously cynical: as if
there is any free trade between the CEO of a multinational
corporation whose life and livelihood is insulated by
many layers of bureaucracy, lawyers, police, etc., from
a person whom his company has just "rightsized" into
oblivion (unless the latter can organize with his
fellows to -- perhaps get the CEO's attention through
a "terrorist" act???).
But then why should we not expect the proponents of
#1 to use words as a tool of "free enterprise"
Every man for himself and God against all.
I'll be glad to join a #3 if anybody offers me
an invitation.
+\brad mccormick
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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