as though i were bertrand russell.
i am not a protectionist because i believe in free and fair trade. i believe protectionism hurts americans -- if not most directly economically, then without question sociologically, culturally, and educationally. i believe that, as thomas jefferson noted, free people insist on free commerce, though -- quite importantly -- free commerce alone can't be used to usher in freedom in the political and socio-cultural sense. but i do agree that free trade prevents americans from a cloistered, limited, and xenophobic worldview.
i am not a free-trader in the mold of the chicago or austrian school (friedman and von mises, respectively). i'm a free-trader in the mold of krugman, stiglitz, and others who argue that trade can be both free and fair -- for instance we can insist that our trading partners have and enforce laws regarding child labor, living wages, work conditions, collective bargaining, and the like. we can stop using military threat to induce other nations to sign onto free-trade agreements -- agreements which, like nafta and soon cafta, do nothing but grow the u.s. economy while shrinking the economies of our trading partners.
global commerce should lead to global freedom, if practiced correctly. this means government oversight. if you don't like it, i will laugh when china stomps us all like jelly beans on a sidewalk that have fallen out of a little girl's pocket because she was jumping rope.
i am not a protectionist because i believe in free and fair trade. i believe protectionism hurts americans -- if not most directly economically, then without question sociologically, culturally, and educationally. i believe that, as thomas jefferson noted, free people insist on free commerce, though -- quite importantly -- free commerce alone can't be used to usher in freedom in the political and socio-cultural sense. but i do agree that free trade prevents americans from a cloistered, limited, and xenophobic worldview.
i am not a free-trader in the mold of the chicago or austrian school (friedman and von mises, respectively). i'm a free-trader in the mold of krugman, stiglitz, and others who argue that trade can be both free and fair -- for instance we can insist that our trading partners have and enforce laws regarding child labor, living wages, work conditions, collective bargaining, and the like. we can stop using military threat to induce other nations to sign onto free-trade agreements -- agreements which, like nafta and soon cafta, do nothing but grow the u.s. economy while shrinking the economies of our trading partners.
global commerce should lead to global freedom, if practiced correctly. this means government oversight. if you don't like it, i will laugh when china stomps us all like jelly beans on a sidewalk that have fallen out of a little girl's pocket because she was jumping rope.
1 comment:
china won't stomp us. India will. Mostly because indians walk more, the chinese ride bicycles.
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