Author Topic: op-ed about free trade  (Read 1619 times)

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Universe Prince

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op-ed about free trade
« on: January 16, 2008, 09:10:19 PM »
There is a nice op-ed about free trade up at The New York Times of all places. The guy simplifies a bit, but I think he is correct.

      Some people suggest, however, that it makes sense to isolate the moral effects of a single new trading opportunity or free trade agreement. Surely we have fellow citizens who are hurt by those agreements, at least in the limited sense that they?d be better off in a world where trade flourishes, except in this one instance. What do we owe those fellow citizens?

One way to think about that is to ask what your moral instincts tell you in analogous situations. Suppose, after years of buying shampoo at your local pharmacy, you discover you can order the same shampoo for less money on the Web. Do you have an obligation to compensate your pharmacist? If you move to a cheaper apartment, should you compensate your landlord? When you eat at McDonald?s, should you compensate the owners of the diner next door? Public policy should not be designed to advance moral instincts that we all reject every day of our lives.

[...]

Bullying and protectionism have a lot in common. They both use force (either directly or through the power of the law) to enrich someone else at your involuntary expense. If you?re forced to pay $20 an hour to an American for goods you could have bought from a Mexican for $5 an hour, you?re being extorted. When a free trade agreement allows you to buy from the Mexican after all, rejoice in your liberation ? even if Mr. McCain, Mr. Romney and the rest of the presidential candidates don?t want you to.
      

Whole thing at the other end of this link.
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_JS

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Re: op-ed about free trade
« Reply #1 on: January 17, 2008, 02:34:09 PM »
Quote
Bullying and protectionism have a lot in common. They both use force (either directly or through the power of the law) to enrich someone else at your involuntary expense. If you?re forced to pay $20 an hour to an American for goods you could have bought from a Mexican for $5 an hour, you?re being extorted. When a free trade agreement allows you to buy from the Mexican after all, rejoice in your liberation ? even if Mr. McCain, Mr. Romney and the rest of the presidential candidates don?t want you to.

What if you're buying a product that was made by a child in a country that has no labor protections? Do you still "rejoice in your liberation?"

What if you're buying a product from a company that runs factories in a country that are extremely unsafe for the employees? Does one still "rejoice in their liberation?"

Saving money is fine, but is exploiting workers in another country?

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Universe Prince

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Re: op-ed about free trade
« Reply #2 on: January 17, 2008, 03:10:55 PM »

What if you're buying a product that was made by a child in a country that has no labor protections? Do you still "rejoice in your liberation?"

What if you're buying a product from a company that runs factories in a country that are extremely unsafe for the employees? Does one still "rejoice in their liberation?"

Saving money is fine, but is exploiting workers in another country?


What if you're buying a product that was made in a relatively poor country where the factory work was the best job available? I really do get the concern for the working conditions for workers in other countries because I share it. But I will not say we should never buy something made in those countries, because frankly I think that would do more harm to those workers by eliminating their jobs. Seems to me those folks being left poor with little to no prospects of economic improvement would be a bigger concern. While granting them excellent working conditions and labor protection laws in a day would be nice, that ain't gonna happen. They're going to have to grow into that like we did (though I hope more quickly). But if we take the jobs away, we make that improvement that much more difficult.
Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever.
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Xavier_Onassis

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Re: op-ed about free trade
« Reply #3 on: January 17, 2008, 03:19:54 PM »
So your final answer is that if you are not allowed to buy something made by children working in a very dangerous factory, YOU are the exploited one?

I mean, you won;t be told that it was made by children. The owner of the factory will assure you that it is safe. You won't see the children injured, or hear them scream when they get caught in a machine or are doomed to a life of wheezing because of working with dangerous toxic chemicals?

So you will pay maybe 30% less and won't feel exploited. As you pass the unemployed fellow American who could have made the product begging or selling bottled water on the street, you can tell him to get a job.

 
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Universe Prince

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Re: op-ed about free trade
« Reply #4 on: January 17, 2008, 03:48:19 PM »

So your final answer is that if you are not allowed to buy something made by children working in a very dangerous factory, YOU are the exploited one?


I don't recall saying that. And I believe the author of the article used the word "extorted" not "exploited".


I mean, you won;t be told that it was made by children. The owner of the factory will assure you that it is safe. You won't see the children injured, or hear them scream when they get caught in a machine or are doomed to a life of wheezing because of working with dangerous toxic chemicals?

So you will pay maybe 30% less and won't feel exploited. As you pass the unemployed fellow American who could have made the product begging or selling bottled water on the street, you can tell him to get a job.
 

I see. You want to chastise me for supposedly not caring about the exploitation of workers in other countries because I can't see them, but you apparently don't care about taking jobs away from them because you can't see them. Wow, you're such a humanitarian, no not really. Sorry (again, not really), but I don't feel guilty for helping to provide people in poor countries with jobs. That you may be too short-sighted to see beyond your own borders does not make me feel ashamed at all. Yes, working conditions in poor countries should improve, but they won't if the jobs are taken away.
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_JS

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Re: op-ed about free trade
« Reply #5 on: January 17, 2008, 04:14:24 PM »
But will they improve with the jobs there?

What we've done is effectively destroy the peasant lifestyle that has existed for centuries, even millennia in some nations. Now there are third world countries with massive slums that are growing faster than we've ever seen urban areas grow. Interestingly, the growth doesn't match the economic situation in most of those cities, which are facing high unemployment and economic recession.

If this were the industrial revolution and there were a force fighting strongly for the workers in the form of Trade Unionism, socialism, and Marxism, then I would most certainly agree that the manufacturing jobs will bring improved working conditions because the workers movement will demand it.

But this is a time of neo-liberalism, the IMF and World Bank set the rules for many countries. There is no government support for the poor in most of these countries. Most of them have no voice, no right to assemble, to form unions, to collectively bargain. So where are they going to turn? Why are their conditions going to improve? Because you keep purchasing cheap crap from them and Milty Friedman made up some bogus theory to hide what he really espoused?

I know you really do care UP, which I admire a lot. Also, I tend to think that free trade gets a bad rap on the left. Yet, I don't see where many of these companies are really helping the people at all. Many of them don't seem to give a damn less what happens to their employees. They sure as hell don't want them to have higher pay, better benefits, or god-forbid a decent (or even safe) working environment. Look at the slums outside Manila, Lagos, Mexico City, Lahore, Calcutta, Rio, Bangkok, and so forth. Are those lives really improving? Is your consumer choice making those people better off? Or are you really making someone else wealthy?
I smell something burning, hope it's just my brains.
They're only dropping peppermints and daisy-chains
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   Fill my ears with silver
   Stick my legs in plaster
   Tell me lies about Vietnam.

Universe Prince

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Re: op-ed about free trade
« Reply #6 on: January 17, 2008, 04:50:16 PM »

But will they improve with the jobs there?


Ultimately, yes, I think they will. I'm not saying there isn't a long way to go in those countries you mentioned. But frankly I don't see protectionism as a means to help those people. People living in slums are going to be helped by a decrease in available jobs? I think it is not so. This is one reason why I think we need more open trade, not less. Helping people in other countries improve their economic situation is not going to happen if we attempt protectionist measures that ultimately cost jobs overseas.

The thing is (and I think you probably see this JS though we might disagree on how it should all work) is that making this an Us vs. Them matter doesn't really help them or us. This isn't some sport where we must have a winning side and losing side. Some people complain about capitalism as "I've got mine so screw you." I don't agree with that, of course, but I think protectionist policy is exactly that, "We have ours, so screw you." We subsidize our agriculture industry and then dump artificially cheap goods in foreign markets, but bitch about the sale of goods made in Mexico or Taiwan or China. This is not a solution, imo. It is part of the problem. If I can get crawfish from China  cheaper than I can from the crawfish farm in Texas, why is that bad? Should I want to penalize the Chinese because they are Chinese and not American? I do not believe I should.

As to bad working conditions and slums, I do not want people to suffer them. I'm not in favor of child labor. But we're not going to stop that by not trading with these countries. Personally, I think what we need is to stop trying to let the W.T.O. and corporations run the show. We keep trying to treat people as groups, when what we need is to treat people as individuals. I think if we could start opening trade up, particularly to entrepreneurs in other countries rather than just paving the way for major corporations to move in, we would see improvements in working conditions.

Obviously the system as it is now is not perfect. But I don't think it will improve by trying to stop it or ignore it with protectionism. The tiniest of baby steps have taken toward a freer global marketplace, but too many people keep wanting to control everything. We need to move forward, not backwards, if we want to deal with the problems in a way that helps everyone.
« Last Edit: January 17, 2008, 04:59:03 PM by Universe Prince »
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Re: op-ed about free trade
« Reply #7 on: January 17, 2008, 05:05:56 PM »
That was an excellent post and for the most part I agree.

I tend to favor a world with less borders as well. I mean, what are lines on a map anyway? And you're right that these folks do need jobs. Industrial jobs can be very good jobs too.

We've got to help these countries establish a decent framework. As it stands these companies go in and pretty much write their own rules, or have them written for them by the WTO, World Bank, or IMF. That doesn't help the country or the people, it doesn't build anything lasting. I tend to agree that entrepreneurs and possibly cooperatives would benefit the people much more in the long-term.
I smell something burning, hope it's just my brains.
They're only dropping peppermints and daisy-chains
   So stuff my nose with garlic
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   Fill my ears with silver
   Stick my legs in plaster
   Tell me lies about Vietnam.

Universe Prince

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Re: op-ed about free trade
« Reply #8 on: January 17, 2008, 06:40:17 PM »

That was an excellent post and for the most part I agree.


Whaddya mean you agree? Y'damn commie, you're not supposed to agree with me! ;-]


I tend to favor a world with less borders as well.


I would not say I favor a world with less borders. I don't want to infringe on the sovereignty of other countries, but I do think we could probably work towards a world where the guy on the other side of the border is, for the most part, a neighbor and friend rather than an enemy or thief, and the world would not end up falling into chaos and destruction.


We've got to help these countries establish a decent framework.


I think we need to try to get out of the way as much as possible and them them establish their own framework. When you say "help these countries establish a decent framework" it sounds to me kinda like an attitude of a sort of economic colonialism, stepping into to tell the backwards folks what to do. I doubt you mean it that way; I'm just saying that is how is sounds to me. I think the framework that we have in the U.S. or the West might not be the best framework for African nations or Asian nations or South American nations. We can encourage better working conditions certainly, but at some point we have to let them figure out what works best for them within the framework of their cultures and societies.


As it stands these companies go in and pretty much write their own rules, or have them written for them by the WTO, World Bank, or IMF. That doesn't help the country or the people, it doesn't build anything lasting. I tend to agree that entrepreneurs and possibly cooperatives would benefit the people much more in the long-term.


Exactly. They need long-term, lasting solutions that fit them, not myopic rules decided upon by authoritarian types from other countries and cultures.
Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever.
--Hieronymus Karl Frederick Baron von Munchausen ("The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" [1988])--