Thursday, June 13, 2013
On Free Trade
It has delivered hundreds of millions of Asians out of poverty and it will do the exact same thing for Africans. The only thing necessary will be for paranoiac, stupid, and demagogic politicians, pressure groups, and bureaucrats to not fuck it up........................................................................................And, yes, there's also one other thing that people have to realize. Countries do NOT become prosperous overnight. They/their economies all go through slow, developmental stages. The fact that you have all of these ignorant American leftists wringing their hands over concepts such as "sweat shops", while, yes, it may be laudable on a rudimentary level, is every bit as ethnocentric and dumb (the fact that if it weren't for these jobs most of these folks would be living on the streets and picking out of garbage cans) as Pat Robertson crapping on the Buddha.
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13 comments:
"Pat Robertson crapping on the Buddha." That's a good one.
Lets face it Will, free trade in this country actually had a short lifespan. Beyond the first 100 years of our nation's existence we have been increasingly more regulated and thus increasingly a mixed economy.
Asia and Africa will likely follow the same trajectory.
Ah yes, the slavery argument. Slavery provided steady work, a meal, and a roof over their heads. They didn't have it so bad. Way to,go, Will! I think your conversion is complete.
That's a cheap shot, Jerry. Comparing literal slaves to free citizens of a sovereign country who are seemingly happy (almost to a one) to have these opportunities. It's like, what, you want to pay these people American wages when the cost of living is but a fraction of ours? Not employ them at all? Keep them in abject poverty in perpetuity?
Yeah, you're right, Les, from Hoover an FDR to Bush and Obama, we certainly HAVEN'T had a lot of intelligent governing over the past 100 years.
Will didn't defend slavery at all. Jerry flopped there. Jerry is being arrogant and paternalistic, really. Not to mention that the concept of free trade completely negates slavery.
This isn't the only time people bring up the idea of slavery when it does not apply. The idea of `wage slavery` is another. Using the term without regard to meaning for cheap rhetorical effect as Jerry has is also unfair to actual slaves.
I think even Paul Krugman has defended free trade in the past. After all, he's really a trade economist. Great post.
And, dmarks, we could also point to the progress of nations such as South Korea, Singapore, Brazil, Taiwan, Estonia, etc. that have grown exponentially.............I think that you're right, Roberto, as has nearly every other economist on the planet save for a few.
Anti-free-traee folks, whose views on trade clearly lean toward the authoritarian/fascist (rulers choose, people don't) end up heading toward the company of certain famous mid-20th century socialists from central Europe. And their views are entirely "macro", without regards to the people who get crushed by the vague untrue generalizations.
And yes they are arrogant in the extreme, with callous disregard for workers, their livelihoods, and their lives.
I know foreign workers. I have talked to many of them, and do all the time. I am sure some of them might punch Jerry in the nose for slandering them as "slaves" and for his favoring fascist trade policies which deny them livelihoods. Anti-free traders are almost always jingoistic, believing that "the pursuit life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" is a special privilege deserved only by Americans, and this special privilege must be protected by draconian laws which in fact actually end up punishing Americans as well.
These views are clearly fascistby the definition of the world, as they concentrate power at the top and serve to centralize authority in the hands of those whom such over our personal lives simply does not belong.
"In most cases, fascists discouraged or banned foreign trade; fascists believed that too much international trade would make the national economy dependent on international capital..."
So yes, Will, your views on free trade make the most sense, as they put the decision power about these matters directly in the hands of those who know most about them.
Now he is insulting the people who benefit from free trade as "plutocrats".
Previously, he used the "plutocrat" insult against school boards who want to pay educators a fair wage, and mom-and-pop stores that can't afford to pay no-skill 17 year olds $20 an hour.
Now he is making an entirely fact-free and ignorant judgement that these people being paid for the value of the work are "slaves", plutocrats (since they are the people who benefit from free trade), and exploited.
The term "wage slave" is again entirely invalid. None of these people are slaves in any way.
He doesn't realize that if these people weren't engaged in trade, most of them would be scavenging off the streets for less that a dollar a day and/or engaged in prostitution. He NEVER thinks ahead.
They are as chess pieces to him. Not real people with real lives, real hopes, real dreams, and real ambitions. Not any of those worth a tinker's dam if they contradict how HE feels they should think and live, anyway.
Transference, Dennis. That is how YOU view these people... as chess pieces to be used to make the plutocrats richer.
So far WD has referred to no exploitation. And now he makes allegations of rape. No worries: the ignorance and jingoistic hate WD expresses is on the wrong side of history, and entirely opposite of the view of these brown-skinned people he insists on bashing.
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