Posted on 10/09/2005 10:01:22 AM PDT by Willie Green
But, in general, the protective system of our day is conservative, while the free trade system is destructive. It breaks up old nationalities and pushes the antagonism of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie to the extreme point. In a word, the free trade system hastens the social revolution. It is in this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, that I vote in favor of free trade.
~Karl Marx, "On the Question of Free Trade" - January 9, 1848
Amazing. Unreconstructed Marxist balderdash circa 1850, mixed with a generous dollop of socialist autarky nonsense from circa 1930. Don't these Lefties ever get anything _new_ to rant about?
Wow.
Leave it to the lefties to engage a blatant full frontal oxy-moronic statement for their opening premise.
Thanks for that neo communist garbage. If you oppose free trade why not be brave enough to say you hate freedom.
More Marxist drivel : )
obscenely wealthy and criminal oligarchs
Like Ford, Edison, the Wright Brothers and Carnagie.
Perhaps, you can inform me of the great inventions from 1945 to 1990 that came from your beloved commie countries. You can say it... you hate freedom too!
Bump, a good read. thanks.
Gentlemen:
You are on the right track. You reject abstract theories and little regard for abundance and low prices. You concern yourselves mainly with the fate of the producer. You wish to free him from foreign competition, that is, to reserve the domestic market for domestic industry.
We come to offer you a wonderful opportunity for your -- what shall we call it? Your theory? No, nothing is more deceptive than theory. Your doctrine? Your system? Your principle? But you dislike doctrines, you have a horror of systems, as for principles, you deny that there are any in political economy; therefore we shall call it your practice -- your practice without theory and without principle.
We are suffering from the ruinous competition of a rival who apparently works under conditions so far superior to our own for the production of light that he is flooding the domestic market with it at an incredibly low price; for the moment he appears, our sales cease, all the consumers turn to him, and a branch of French industry whose ramifications are innumerable is all at once reduced to complete stagnation. This rival, which is none other than the sun, is waging war on us so mercilessly we suspect he is being stirred up against us by perfidious Albion (excellent diplomacy nowadays!), particularly because he has for that haughty island a respect that he does not show for us [1].
http://bastiat.org/en/petition.html
Why? "Ford, Edison, the Wright Brothers and Carnagie" were the good guys.
Perhaps, you can inform me of the great inventions from 1945 to 1990 that came from your beloved commie countries.
So what exactly Al Capone, Khodorkovsky, Bagsik etc invented?
You can say it... you hate freedom too!
You would like Al Capone to enjoy freedom?
The person who wrote that article is a typical Canadian hater of all Capitalists and to him Edison is the same as Al Capone.
Free trade raises wages in the poorest countries, creating a consumer middle class. It is happening in Mexico, India, Haiti, and many other countries where poverty is the result of lack of opportunity rather than opressive governments.
Free Trade creates opportunity for the poorest countries to insource based on undeveloped resources. Free Trade is less adventagious for wealthy countries as it challenges their production to become more competative.
Wealthy economies tend to become lazy and bloated when their governments protect them from market-place economics.
The problem for the author is his unwillingness to allow change to occur. Thus he makes a to-do about environmental plunder, removing wage protections, and falsities about the impact on poor nations. His bogeymen are those who create production, jobs and industry. More simpering from the left.
What about you, are Al Capone, Khodorkovsky, Bagsik same as Edison in your eyes?
I must have missed the article that showed the world was becoming increasingly destitute. Do you have a link?
So do you believe that it is fundamentally wrong for anyone to offer to perform a given task for less pay than someone else wants to receive to perform that task?
I think that GNP/cap has doubled in the third world in the last 30 years and several big economies appear to be in take off. When people talk about these low wage manufacturers I remember how we used to have the same complaints about Japan in the 60's. No more.
Capone made money from Alcohol prohibition and yes he was evil as was prohibition. As for Khodorkovsky and Bagsik, I can not comment on the (de)merits of each. Capone became rich because of anti trade legislation.
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