[ 1 January 2003 ]
Free trade fallacy
'Like Britain, the US protected and subsidised its industries while it was a developing country, switching to free trade only in 1945, when most of its industrial competitors had been wiped out by the second world war and the US enjoyed a virtual monopoly in many manufacturing sectors. The revival of Europe and Japan by the 1970s eliminated these monopoly profits, and the support for free trade of industrial-state voters in the American midwest and northeast declined. Today, support for free-trade globalism in the US comes chiefly from the commodity-exporting south and west and from US multinationals which have moved their factories to low-wage countries like Mexico and China. Like 19th-century Britain, 21st-century America tells countries that are trying to catch up: do what we say, not what we did' ( Michael Lind via Prospect )
»
See also this book chapter by Ha-Joon Chang (PDF), from earlier this year, this commentary by Bernie Sanders, an independent member of the US Congress, from yesterday, and this blog entry from Saturday
http://www.hullocentral.demon.co.uk/site/anfin.htm
