Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: Joe Bonforte
Contrariwise, there are many studies that show that the best single predictor of economic health for a nation in the last two hundred years is how open it is to trade with the rest of the world. That would seem to completely validate Ricardo.

Give me examples of the nations which practiced a free trade (no tariffs) for a prolonged time since Ricardo, please. Present free/tariffless globalist trade is a new experiment.

36 posted on 03/06/2004 6:11:22 PM PST by A. Pole (The genocide of Albanians was stopped in its tracks before it began.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies ]


To: A. Pole
Give me examples of the nations which practiced a free trade (no tariffs) for a prolonged time since Ricardo, please. Present free/tariffless globalist trade is a new experiment.

It is unnecessary to give an example of a nation with no tariffs at all. It is only necessary to show that in general, the more free the trade, the faster the economic growth.

So here we go. First up, the WTO:

The money quote here is this:

The study finds that, in general, living standards in developing countries are not catching up with those in developed countries. But some developing countries are catching up. What distinguishes them is their openness to trade. The countries that are catching up with rich ones are those that are open to trade; and the more open they are, the faster they are converging..

In case you think this just applies to developing countries, you can get the WTO take on effects of free trade on the USA here. An extract:

The argument that trade liberalization through the WTO has made Americans poorer contradicts the most obvious facts about the U.S. economy in the year 2000. During the last five years, living standards have been rising for low- and high-income workers alike. More than 80 percent of the jobs created since 1993 are in occupations that pay above the median wage. Figures on the alleged decline of real wages are misleading because they overstate inflation and do not include the growth of nonwage benefits..

There's a nice PDF available at that link with the details.

And you might try this article and the data that it refers to. An extract:

Another lesson from the study is this: When debating trade policy, governments and legislatures — especially in the developed countries, such as the United States or Europe — cannot ignore the broader foreign-policy implications of trade.

By opening markets at home and encouraging freer trade abroad, they not only promote economic growth — but also a more humane and democratic world.

Or you can consult the basic reference on free trade by the Economist Magazine. It is here. It says:

Measured by the volume of IMPORTS and EXPORTS, world trade has become increasingly free in the years since the second world war. A fall in barriers to trade, as a result of the GENERAL AGREEMENT ON TARIFFS AND TRADE and its successor, the WORLD TRADE ORGANISATION, has helped stimulate this GROWTH. The volume of world merchandise trade at the start of the 21st century was about 17 times what it was in 1950, and the world's total OUTPUT was not even six times as big. The ratio of world exports to GDP had more than doubled since 1950. Of this, trade in manufactured goods was worth three times the value of trade in SERVICES, although the share of services trade was growing fast.

There are plenty more where those came from. I turned these up with one quick Google search.

Now, there are some studies that show harm from free trade. All the ones I've seen are by leftist academics. If you would rather place your faith in leftist academics than mainstream economists, be my guest.

41 posted on 03/06/2004 7:08:37 PM PST by Joe Bonforte
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 36 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson