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Quote by: Right Is this true or is it wishful thinking? |
I think it's rose-tinted. The Riccardo stuff is from a far simpler time. I wouldn't be too quick to pronounce Mexicans (or Canadians) beneficiaries of NAFTA, and doubt they see things that way (Canadians sure don't, on the whole).
To understand why, imagine Juan and Pedro deciding that they're going to start making jeans and use their comparative advantage to outsell Levis. How do you think they'll do? Intuitively you know as well as I do that they'll get squashed like bugs, even with all verses of the Holy Scriptures of Free Trade duly worshipped.
Free trade makes sense at a simplistic level, just like Leninism, and attracts quasi-religious adherents. But the world is a complicated place. At some point governments have to intervene to correct market excesses. And suddenly it ain't so free any more.
And I'm leaving aside the increasingly obvious fact that, for environmental reasons, we can't go on shipping widgets madly all over the globe.