Everybody talks about free trade, but no one talks about why it doesn’t work.
It doesn’t work because its real name is free greed or free exploitation.
Free trade didn’t work a thousand years ago, or five thousand years ago; and it doesn’t work today.
It doesn’t work because free trade taken to its absurd extension permits one corporation to make all products for everyone all over the globe for slave wages. Free trade works against small and medium sized businesses and in time wipes these competitors off the map. The larger corporations having greater financial resources and, of course, unquenchable thirst for money, have the resources to buy off politicians who can institute expensive and cumbersome regulations that small competitors can not meet. The same politicians can also be “persuaded” to look the other way as employees are being brutalized. This arrangement does not take into account man’s basic desire, need and right to contribute meaningfully to society.
The free trade that America engages in today with Indonesia is a classic example. There workers, outside the control of the US government, toil for sixteen hours per day in a standing position for the grand sum of two dollars per day. Yet the products they ship back to America are just as costly as they were when Americans made those products. Furthermore, because these products are made overseas, average Americans, without work, turn to drugs, violence and criminal activity. They also become welfare recipients. This produces a drag upon society. So, not only do Indonesians not win, Americans lose as well. Indonesians become slaves to corporations as Americans become slaves of the state. The state working in concert with the larger corporations does little to solve the problem save talk.
What does work is fair trade where, within reason, 80% of a nation’s goods are made within that nation. Such an arrangement permits average people and small to medium businesses to live a productive life. It recognizes man’s essential need and right to live a meaningful life where he can contribute to the betterment of his nation. Sadly, free trade does not do that.
Free trade works for the rich, not you. Free trade permits the rich to live their fantasy lifestyle of possessing mansions all over the globe, mansions fully staffed and ready to go for when the great man graces us with his presence. This is what free trade is all about.
Cowboy Archer 