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Bishop said:
osborn, free trade and fair trade are two different things..
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Agreed. I do think its worth noting though that most people are lost from the word go when discussing foreign trade policy issues, hence the reason the market today does not reflect the values of many societies that participate.
When I talk of free trade I look at our nations historical perspective, and our values in the Constitution and bill of rights. In order for our values to be in rights of the individual, there is required a certain acknowledgement to the basis of rights, and their weakness, which is state or national exploitation through one of many forms of tyranny.
Allowing states and nations to build war chests, weapons and manufacturing empires on dollars extorted through unfair trade is not only against our basis of individual rights, it directly works to lower those rights to that of the third world in order to be "competitive" with those workforces as well as creating much more formidable enemies by access to the market, as opposed to limiting the growth of direct enemies by isolating out any profit that the nation/state extorts via labor using sensible, limited, direct sanctions or a complete removal from market access (to our nation) both supply and demand.
If the people are educated in the working of the free market, and what makes it different than fair trade, more power to them. AS long as they know it lowers their rights, wages, labor and goods to the equivalent of their direct exploited labor competititon in the marketplace.
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Bishop said:
what we currently have is neither "free", nor "fair", depending on who you're talking to. it is documented fact, though, that countries that participate in the global trading system vis a vis the WTO have seen better economic (and per capita) growth than countries outside of the WTO.
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Perhaps, but we see in mutliple instances where this exact same methods literally builds the armies of our next enemy, and we can admit that without access to the U.S. market, that option would not exist.
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Bishop said:
the term "free trade" is a poor phrase to use - and has always been a poor phrase to use. "regulated trade" is much more accurate imo. since the start of the trade liberalization movement, "free traders" have always sought to create international institutions to regulate trade. the goal was to break down barriers and increase trade, and all of this was to follow a predefined set of regulations. it was never intended to be purely free, and certainly not fair. (i also wonder if what one citizen of one country considers fair would be considered unfair by someone from another country.)
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All of this I agree with, and I share the same intrest in what is considered "fair" by other nations citizens.