Today's Free Trade is not about the Free Market

JEFFHEAD.COM ^ | 08/01/2003 | Jeff Head

[Jeff Head]

TODAY'S FREE TRADE IS NOT ABOUT THE FREE MARKET

We are in a very real battle in this nation and it is a battle for our heart and soul. It is spread out on many, many fronts...education, foreign policy, work ethic (individually and societally), immigration, the economy, moral values...and the list goes on.

Let's focus on the economy and one significant part of it...a major, growing part of it. Free Trade and foreign outsourcing.

I was going to entitle this article..."I used to make something"...or..."We used to make something in this country". But, I thought better of it and realized that such a statment was really focusing on the tail end of the issue as opposed to the root.

So, instead, I am simply calling it, "Today's Free Trade is not about the Free Market."

And it is so, today's Free Trade is NOT about the free market. Instead, in a very similar manner to other key issues in this battle for the heart and soul of America, what is happening is that a very craftily wordsmithed message of "Free Trade" has been put forth that people have bought into, thinking "How could anyone be against free trade? Why, isn't that all-American?".

Like with abortion, "How could anyone be against a woman's right to choose? Isn't that all American?".

In both cases, the craftily worded title has nothing remotely to do with what is actually going on.

The free market is the system our founders based our commerce on, where the intrinsic, underlying moral values of the people involved in the free market governed the equitable, free exchange of goods and services for other goods and services or currency. Sort of like John Adams said regarding the Constitution...

"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other."- John Adams, Oct. 11, 1798

It is that underlying moral foundation coupled woth our liberty that made the Free Market in America the envy of the world, just like those same issues made our governmental form the envy of the world.

Well, as far as I am conerned, Adam's words could be tailored to this topic like so, ie... The Free Market was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the economy of any other.

This is a basic truth. Like our government, our free market was not supposed to be very regulated or burdened with miriad rules. The people and the companies were to use their own moral foundation to govern themselves. But, when the moral foundation is removed, you do not have what was intended for the Constitution, and you do not have a true free market.

When we use our foreign policy and economic policy to set up shop and trade with countries, societies, organizations or to implement policies that exploit their people's mercilessly, who keep them down without a hope for true liberty or freedom, who trample the moral values our own system was based upon...and when we do it knowingly, without compuction for those very underlying values, then we do not create a free market...no, that free trade has nothing whatsoever to do with, and is in no way similar to the FREE MARKET, rather, it serves to corrupt it.

Such notions, such actions are in fact wordsmithing for popularizing and putting forth a policy to drain the United States manufacturing, technological, agricultural, energy and other critical industries in order to weaken us...plain and simple...and it is working.

Based on my own travels on behalf of US firms and then later consulting for them...that is what is really happening here in my own opinion, and until we refocus as a people on that underlying moral foundation and the absolute need for it...we will continue to lose ground.

By the way, those same principles that are working at the societal level, have equal application at the personal level too...in fact, in the end it is the sum of their working at the personal level that creates the issue at the societal level.

Jeff Head
Engineering Consultant and,
Author of The Dragon's Fury Series
How current conditions could lead to World War

August 1, 2003
Emmett, Idaho

[GOP_1900AD]

I propose the following credo "free and fair trade with the free world, and woe to the rest." ;)

[Cacophonous]

Any tariff has to be accompanied or...eased (or lack of a better word)...by a lessening of the burden of corporate taxes, federal regs, and unions.

[Texas_Dawg]

Oh, yes, I do. Japan was going to conquer the world.

But now we learn that Japan was not in fact the threat they once claimed because... Ronald Reagan supported a weak dollar? Classic. I guess that's why Japan has been in the tank for over a decade. Good work, Ronnie!

[JNB]

My opinion is many of the dogmatic free traders are either quite young, or just are immature in general, and do not have a grasp of the real world.

[Texas_Dawg]

Any tariff has to be accompanied or...eased (or lack of a better word)...by a lessening of the burden of corporate taxes, federal regs, and unions.

So you would not support these tariffs unless an economically equivalent amount of the latter is enacted as well?

[Cacophonous]

I hope that's it. Probably getting their heads filled with this crap at one of our nation's "institutes of higher learning".

[GOP_1900AD]

He was a strong advocate of free markets and national strength. You know, "The Wealth of NATIONS." He did not write some idiotic rubbish such as "The Lexus and the Olive Tree" which I would rename "The Wealth of Traitors Running Global Corporations and Those in the UNFree Parts of the World Whose Boots They Lick."

[Texas_Dawg]

My opinion is many of the dogmatic free traders are either quite young, or just are immature in general, and do not have a grasp of the real world.

Wait a second... I thought they were all greedy CEOs of multi-nationals.

[JNB]

The valuation of the Yen per dollar went from 240 per dollar in 84 to 120 to a dollar by 87, with most of that fall coing after the 85 agreemnets the US made with Japan and other industrial nations to weaken the dollar. The currency accords were drafted by James Bakker himself. The yen eventually ris eto 80 per dollar by 95, when the weak dollar policy was ended.

[Cacophonous]

I would still support them, but their effectiveness would be drastically reduced. I would like to see us do away with income taxes completely, and fund ourselves with tariffs alone.

[HighRoadToChina]

Thanks for your vote of confidence. If God was not in control, we'd all better give up right now.

[GOP_1900AD]

Were the Japanese building WMDs and saying that war with the US is inevitable? Geopolitical attitude matters, fool!

[Poohbah]

But now we learn that Japan was not in fact the threat they once claimed because... Ronald Reagan supported a weak dollar? Classic. I guess that's why Japan has been in the tank for over a decade. Good work, Ronnie!

What's interesting is that these folks were the ones claiming that Reagan was giving away the entire store to the Japanese, and now they hail him as a savior because he supported a weak dollar...

And you find that Bush's policies, when you examine carefully, are aimed at weakening the dollar.

[Cacophonous]

Smith also wrote, about 25 years before "A Wealth of Nations" a marvelous book called "A Theory of Moral Sentiments". Outlines man's moral obligations. Outstanding book.

[GOP_1900AD]

Naturally, their plan is to always know whose boots to lick and whose nether regions to kiss.

[Poohbah]

Were the Japanese building WMDs and saying that war with the US is inevitable? Geopolitical attitude matters, fool!

China is going to fight a very nasty war with itself LONG before they will be in any shape to fight a war with anyone else.

[JNB]

Note I said many. The CEOs for the most part only gave a damn about the bootom line for the next quarter, and yes, they support unfair trade parctices because its a cheap and easy way to raise profits short term. The CEOs are under no illusion Free Trade is a positive force for all of society, unlike many dogmatic free traders on FR like you.

[Cacophonous]

You think CEOs of multi-nationals spend their time posting to FR?

[GOP_1900AD]

Many were saying the same thing about Germany ~ 1925.

[Cacophonous]

The CEOs are also, for the most part, no longer CEOs of American corporations. They now head multi-national, globalist nations that owe no allegiance to any flag. Hence they can, with a clear conscience, screw the US in the interest of their bottom lines.