On Sat, 04 Dec 1999, Keith Hudson wrote: > On balance, and over the longer term, free trade is immensely beneficial > but, over the short to medium term, there are understandable worries Sounds like those miracle-healers who tell patients "you must get worse before you can get better" when the patients complain about the snake-oil's effects. (A more political analogy would be Hitler's Ermaechtigungsgesetze with which he grabbed absolute power "over the short to medium term, only until things get better"... of course things got worse but until people noticed he was too powerful to be removed... same thing with the WTO?) > Summarised from "Five reasons to worry about free trade" by Hamish McRae > (The Independent, 2 December 1999): > The violence of protestors at the meeting of the World Trade Organisation > (WTO) at Seattle means that the WTO is not seen as an obviously benign > organisation by some of the young. I guess this should read something like: The violence of teargas/rubberbullet police in full riot gear against unarmed peaceful protestors at the WTO meeting in Seattle means that democracy and constitutional rights are not seen as obviously necessary by some of the WTO elderly. > However, there are are at least five real concerns which should not be > ignored. They are: Even the "real concerns" are biased: > 1. A freeing up of trade of any particular good will cause temporary > unemployment at a particular time and place before the workers concerned > find new employment; Where and for what wage should they find new employment ? > 2. Increased free trade adds to the pressure on world resources, and if > every country were to try and live at the present standard of living of > North Americans and in their present style, then this would be impossible; Since when does "Free" Trade *increase* the 3rd world's standard of living ? (on average) > 3. Some countries have such a lack of resources, and such low standards of > education and technological know-how that they cannot get even a modest > share of increased trade in the foreseeable future; Their lack of resources was/is usually created/increased by "Free" Trade in the first place. Btw, even with little (monetary) resources, a pretty decent regional trade is possible (see native societies). Trade doesn't have to be done for its own sake, does it? Or perhaps it does, if the real purpose is exploitation from outside... > 4. Increasing global trade also involves increasing capital and investment > flows but these, given the nature of modern financial systems, can be > rapidly withdrawn from particular sectors or countries at the first sign of > trouble causing unexpected unemployment; Why should this be only temporary ? > 5. The world economy is becoming increasingly dependent on information and > this, at present, is unequally available to people in different parts of > the world, effectively isolating many people from any immediate share of > increased trade. Yeah, the average Indian farmer is most keen on participating in eBay auctions and online-gambling with Wall Street futures. Keith continued: > Many types of reforms are implied in the above article, but competitive > protectionism by one country after another is not one of them. Throwing away environmental and social regulations is not one of them either. > If the > youthful protestors at Seattle had their way they would certainly bring > about a repetition of the 1920/30s in which tens of millions of people > would suffer -- that is, additional to those who are already suffering > (for quite different reasons than trade) -- and only hurt multinational > corporations marginally. If the economic bullies at Seattle had their way they would certainly bring about an unprecedented deregulation in which hundreds of millions of people would suffer -- that is, additional to those who are already suffering (for quite different reasons than trade) -- and only benefit a marginal minority of multinational corporations. > (One or two of them might fold up, of course, but > then multinationals are being formed and are dying all the time -- it's > their natural state of existence.) Their usual way of "dying" is to merge with others to an even larger corporation. The only things that are dying in the process is jobs. (And the odd co-workers when laid-off employees run amok...) Greetings, Chris ____________________________________________________________________________ "THE POLICE ARE NOT HERE TO CREATE DISORDER. THEY'RE HERE TO PRESERVE DISORDER." -- Former Chicago mayor Daley during the infamous 1968 convention
