05-26-2006, 06:58 AM
I vote YES (i.e., let this resolution pass and reject any repeal of it).
Trade is not an issue that the UN must get involved in, but it obviously nibbles away at it in such areas as property as a human right, conditions under which trade can be refused, international safety issues (what ever happened the UN Transport Safety Agency?), etc.
I am happy with the work Groot Gouda did with our regional FTA (which if one reads it, is more like a customs union and proto-confederal union like the RL EU), and I happily signed it. However, "free trade" ain't free and sometimes is not even trade. Please indulge me as a I ramble at great length, as I am wont to do.
Classical economists, notably Ricardo and Smith, praised free trade and its ability to improve living standards around the world. Many of their arguments still make sense, but understandably they neglected to address so many aspects of free trade which were not evident in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Ricardo phrased it in terms of efficiency, citing Portugese efficiency in port-winemaking and British efficiency in woolens. Unfortunately, a nation which lives solely by free trade also dies by free trade.
In the 1830s, Britain repealed the Corn (i.e., cereal grain) Laws, which distorted free trade by propping up an inefficient domestic agribusiness at the expense of foreign growers. Unfortunately, it meant that Britain was vulnerable to naval blockade in time of war, as they discovered in both World Wars. They resorted to drafing Land Army girls, ploughing up economically unviable pasture, etc. Had Britain retained the Corn Laws, or retained the most justifiable portions of them, the country would not be so vulnerable in times of crisis or war. "Free trade" economics also exacerbated the Irish potato starvation, because freetraders threw up their hands and said government was powerless to intervene against market forces. Food is one vital national security good, but so are more obvious ones like weapons.
Most European countries, no matter how tiny, support an astonishingly large military-industrial complex -- even supposedly pacifist and neutral Sweden and Switzerland. Clearly, no economic reason exists for this; it is purely in a country's national interest since relying on other countries for one's weapons is a good way to find one's self short when one really needs them. The neutrals were especially emphatic, correctly reasoning that using another country's armament makes one vulnerable to politico-military manipulation. Cf. post-Shah Iran and its possession of useless American weapons.
An unfortunate biproduct of a multiplicity of national military-industrial complexes is the economic effect of driving the price of weaponry down too far, and export to countries where it shouldn't go. It is ironic that both Britain and Argentina used the Belgian-designed Fabrique Nationale Fusil automatique legere, Argentina used French-made Exocets to sink French-allied British ships, and both belligerents used US-made air-to-air missiles. Thus, my response to one of the daily issues: keep the arms industry going, but carefully vet the end users so you don't get killed by your own weapons.
Another solution has happily presented itself, namely with two or more European military (and in many cases, civilian) corporations getting together in consortia for specific projects. Even with language and domestic political considerations adding to the economic strain, these are remarkably successful vetures like the Tornado fighter and Gazelle helicopter, also promoting NATO interoperability and economies of scale not possible in one-nation only ventures.
I am a RL Canadian, and Canada has had a long history of servile, preferential, managed, protectionist and supposedly "free" trade with its political and economic betters, first Britain and then the United States. It has had inescapable economic and political impact on Canada's historical development. Servile trade was that which Britain conducted with all of its colonies and dependencies; normally, it meant export of raw goods and import of finished goods from the motherland, and resulted in highly compartmentalised benefits and losses to bosses and peons.
When Britain bowed to Ricardo, some vestige of servile trade remained under a system of "imperial preferences," in which foreign countries were divided into first-class (Commonwealth) or second-class (the heathens) categories. This allowed a certain amount of industrial manufacturing develop outside Birmingham and the Industrial Midlands, including in my emotional hometown of Hamilton, Ontario, a.k.a. Steeltown. This regime survived until the 1930s, when the Great Depression caused trade barriers to go up all over the world.
Post-war, Canada realised who was buttering its bread and threw in its lot with the United States. "Managed trade" was reborn in the Autopact, signed by Lyndon Johnson and Lester Pearson, and ensured that Canada had automotive manufacturing even if the auto industry itself lived across the river in Detroit. Erroneously called "free trade," the Autopact was used as the model for the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement upon which the 1988 Canadian election was fought.
I was sympathetic to free trade and its Ricardian origins, but I couldn't vote for a pro-free trade party because the only one was led by a doofus. In five years, Brian Mulroney took a majority government caucus of 148 seats and turned it into 2 [sic] -- or rather let his successor be the fallwoman -- without official legislative status as a party. Brian Mulroney remains the most reviled prime minister in Canadian history, head and shoulders above alcoholic John A. Macdonald, conscriptionist Robert Borden, occultist Mackenzie King, playboy Pierre Trudeau and even thoroughly corrupt Jean Chretien.
Anti-free traders -- the usual pinko NDPers, but also plenty of more centrist and even right wing nationalists -- argued that the FTA would be expanded to Mexico, lead to job loss, cause deindustrialisation, and most importantly wouldn't save Canada from the whims of U.S. trade policy. Each of these criticisms in turn was proved correct. The most recent "trade negotiations" Canada conducted with the U.S. concerned softwood lumber. The U.S. imposed a quota and retained illegally (as determined by several separate NAFTA dispute resolution mechanism decisions) collected duties. This means that free trade is free for the dominant partner to decide if it's a fair trade.
In short, if "free trade" means free trade only when it is in the interests of the largest partner, then I am against what is effectively the law of the jungle. Maintaining an honest if inefficient international trade regime which has no pretentions to be free is better than having somebody tell you it's raining as they piddle on your shoes.
I have neglected entirely the issues of "fair trade" or "economic imperialism," both of which deserve comment from somebody more passionate about them than I am. Here too I have my opinions.
"Fair trade" with regards to a living wage and worker-friendly condidtions is a laudable goal but practically impossible to impose on any politically-based trade regime. A better approach would be to use classical economics tools, say by setting tariffs by accounting for pollution (a la Kyoto) and measuring explicit cost offloading.
"Economic imperialism" is such a loaded term that I doubt any satisfactory middle ground could be found; however, even here a strict prohibition on international extortion as an adjunct of international trade policy would be possible. For instance, one could spell out that economic embargoes could only be conducted in response to trade issues as identified by multilateral agencies or as part of UN Security Council sanctions. The strongarm tactics the United States is currently using in its so-called Middle Eastern free trade initiative are criminal. What Dr. Rice effectively says to each country "negotiating" on its own the the Big Eagle, "Look what we did to Iraq. If you don't want that coming soon to a (combat) theatre near you, agree to sovereignty-stripping 'economic liberalisation' measures which were previously applied to poor countries but you managed to avoid so far by being so oil-rich. Now take it like a good little boy and smile."
I love the ideals of the United States, and its govenment and people should be rightly proud of them. It is no accident that Gene Roddenberry relied heavily on the United States and the United Nations (HQ'd in the US and in whom it had an early and emphatic booster, fuelled by League of Nations-induced guilt and a recognition that multilateralism really WAS the way to go) when creating his United Federation of Planets. "No taxation without representation," "Of the people, by the people and for the people," "The four freedoms," Woodrow Wilson's "Fourteen Points," "All men are created equal," "Emancipation Proclamation," "Bill of Rights," "Miranda warning," etc. -- they all rightly have resonance far beyond their borders.
Many US-bashers will cite only examples of failure or hypocrisy, e.g., "All men are created equal" vs. "three-fifths 'compromise,'" "14 Points" vs. no League of Nations, but they miss the point. The US has set the bar openly and high, so of course its failings are all the more public and more glaring. And when a bull is invited to run, not just run amok in, the china shop, people rightly sit up, take notice, titter and hector. It's what concerned friends do, and I wish Blair had used some of his political capital with Bush to keep the latter closer to planet earth, but what can I say when my country's new PM Harper is begging for a spot in the sycophantic retinue?
So, to summarise, free trade good in most cases, "free trade" bad in all cases. Clear as mud? :blink:
Trade is not an issue that the UN must get involved in, but it obviously nibbles away at it in such areas as property as a human right, conditions under which trade can be refused, international safety issues (what ever happened the UN Transport Safety Agency?), etc.
I am happy with the work Groot Gouda did with our regional FTA (which if one reads it, is more like a customs union and proto-confederal union like the RL EU), and I happily signed it. However, "free trade" ain't free and sometimes is not even trade. Please indulge me as a I ramble at great length, as I am wont to do.
Classical economists, notably Ricardo and Smith, praised free trade and its ability to improve living standards around the world. Many of their arguments still make sense, but understandably they neglected to address so many aspects of free trade which were not evident in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Ricardo phrased it in terms of efficiency, citing Portugese efficiency in port-winemaking and British efficiency in woolens. Unfortunately, a nation which lives solely by free trade also dies by free trade.
In the 1830s, Britain repealed the Corn (i.e., cereal grain) Laws, which distorted free trade by propping up an inefficient domestic agribusiness at the expense of foreign growers. Unfortunately, it meant that Britain was vulnerable to naval blockade in time of war, as they discovered in both World Wars. They resorted to drafing Land Army girls, ploughing up economically unviable pasture, etc. Had Britain retained the Corn Laws, or retained the most justifiable portions of them, the country would not be so vulnerable in times of crisis or war. "Free trade" economics also exacerbated the Irish potato starvation, because freetraders threw up their hands and said government was powerless to intervene against market forces. Food is one vital national security good, but so are more obvious ones like weapons.
Most European countries, no matter how tiny, support an astonishingly large military-industrial complex -- even supposedly pacifist and neutral Sweden and Switzerland. Clearly, no economic reason exists for this; it is purely in a country's national interest since relying on other countries for one's weapons is a good way to find one's self short when one really needs them. The neutrals were especially emphatic, correctly reasoning that using another country's armament makes one vulnerable to politico-military manipulation. Cf. post-Shah Iran and its possession of useless American weapons.
An unfortunate biproduct of a multiplicity of national military-industrial complexes is the economic effect of driving the price of weaponry down too far, and export to countries where it shouldn't go. It is ironic that both Britain and Argentina used the Belgian-designed Fabrique Nationale Fusil automatique legere, Argentina used French-made Exocets to sink French-allied British ships, and both belligerents used US-made air-to-air missiles. Thus, my response to one of the daily issues: keep the arms industry going, but carefully vet the end users so you don't get killed by your own weapons.
Another solution has happily presented itself, namely with two or more European military (and in many cases, civilian) corporations getting together in consortia for specific projects. Even with language and domestic political considerations adding to the economic strain, these are remarkably successful vetures like the Tornado fighter and Gazelle helicopter, also promoting NATO interoperability and economies of scale not possible in one-nation only ventures.
I am a RL Canadian, and Canada has had a long history of servile, preferential, managed, protectionist and supposedly "free" trade with its political and economic betters, first Britain and then the United States. It has had inescapable economic and political impact on Canada's historical development. Servile trade was that which Britain conducted with all of its colonies and dependencies; normally, it meant export of raw goods and import of finished goods from the motherland, and resulted in highly compartmentalised benefits and losses to bosses and peons.
When Britain bowed to Ricardo, some vestige of servile trade remained under a system of "imperial preferences," in which foreign countries were divided into first-class (Commonwealth) or second-class (the heathens) categories. This allowed a certain amount of industrial manufacturing develop outside Birmingham and the Industrial Midlands, including in my emotional hometown of Hamilton, Ontario, a.k.a. Steeltown. This regime survived until the 1930s, when the Great Depression caused trade barriers to go up all over the world.
Post-war, Canada realised who was buttering its bread and threw in its lot with the United States. "Managed trade" was reborn in the Autopact, signed by Lyndon Johnson and Lester Pearson, and ensured that Canada had automotive manufacturing even if the auto industry itself lived across the river in Detroit. Erroneously called "free trade," the Autopact was used as the model for the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement upon which the 1988 Canadian election was fought.
I was sympathetic to free trade and its Ricardian origins, but I couldn't vote for a pro-free trade party because the only one was led by a doofus. In five years, Brian Mulroney took a majority government caucus of 148 seats and turned it into 2 [sic] -- or rather let his successor be the fallwoman -- without official legislative status as a party. Brian Mulroney remains the most reviled prime minister in Canadian history, head and shoulders above alcoholic John A. Macdonald, conscriptionist Robert Borden, occultist Mackenzie King, playboy Pierre Trudeau and even thoroughly corrupt Jean Chretien.
Anti-free traders -- the usual pinko NDPers, but also plenty of more centrist and even right wing nationalists -- argued that the FTA would be expanded to Mexico, lead to job loss, cause deindustrialisation, and most importantly wouldn't save Canada from the whims of U.S. trade policy. Each of these criticisms in turn was proved correct. The most recent "trade negotiations" Canada conducted with the U.S. concerned softwood lumber. The U.S. imposed a quota and retained illegally (as determined by several separate NAFTA dispute resolution mechanism decisions) collected duties. This means that free trade is free for the dominant partner to decide if it's a fair trade.
In short, if "free trade" means free trade only when it is in the interests of the largest partner, then I am against what is effectively the law of the jungle. Maintaining an honest if inefficient international trade regime which has no pretentions to be free is better than having somebody tell you it's raining as they piddle on your shoes.
I have neglected entirely the issues of "fair trade" or "economic imperialism," both of which deserve comment from somebody more passionate about them than I am. Here too I have my opinions.
"Fair trade" with regards to a living wage and worker-friendly condidtions is a laudable goal but practically impossible to impose on any politically-based trade regime. A better approach would be to use classical economics tools, say by setting tariffs by accounting for pollution (a la Kyoto) and measuring explicit cost offloading. "Economic imperialism" is such a loaded term that I doubt any satisfactory middle ground could be found; however, even here a strict prohibition on international extortion as an adjunct of international trade policy would be possible. For instance, one could spell out that economic embargoes could only be conducted in response to trade issues as identified by multilateral agencies or as part of UN Security Council sanctions. The strongarm tactics the United States is currently using in its so-called Middle Eastern free trade initiative are criminal. What Dr. Rice effectively says to each country "negotiating" on its own the the Big Eagle, "Look what we did to Iraq. If you don't want that coming soon to a (combat) theatre near you, agree to sovereignty-stripping 'economic liberalisation' measures which were previously applied to poor countries but you managed to avoid so far by being so oil-rich. Now take it like a good little boy and smile."
I love the ideals of the United States, and its govenment and people should be rightly proud of them. It is no accident that Gene Roddenberry relied heavily on the United States and the United Nations (HQ'd in the US and in whom it had an early and emphatic booster, fuelled by League of Nations-induced guilt and a recognition that multilateralism really WAS the way to go) when creating his United Federation of Planets. "No taxation without representation," "Of the people, by the people and for the people," "The four freedoms," Woodrow Wilson's "Fourteen Points," "All men are created equal," "Emancipation Proclamation," "Bill of Rights," "Miranda warning," etc. -- they all rightly have resonance far beyond their borders.
Many US-bashers will cite only examples of failure or hypocrisy, e.g., "All men are created equal" vs. "three-fifths 'compromise,'" "14 Points" vs. no League of Nations, but they miss the point. The US has set the bar openly and high, so of course its failings are all the more public and more glaring. And when a bull is invited to run, not just run amok in, the china shop, people rightly sit up, take notice, titter and hector. It's what concerned friends do, and I wish Blair had used some of his political capital with Bush to keep the latter closer to planet earth, but what can I say when my country's new PM Harper is begging for a spot in the sycophantic retinue?
So, to summarise, free trade good in most cases, "free trade" bad in all cases. Clear as mud? :blink: