Trade Justice Problems

[brett_dunbar]

One of the things the trade justice movement objects to is the rich nations forcing free trade provisions on the poor, both through the WTO and through conditional aid. What they don't seem to have considered is we became rich by following certain policies, poor countries would do well to imitate those policies and we should use the means at our

Comments

[wibbble]

I think that's an over-simplification, really. Because we're already rich, we can exploit 'free trade' and crush any attempt by those countries to establish any kind of real competition - plus, of course, the same people who campaign for the imposition of 'free trade' on third world countries generally also campaign to retain subsidies in their home territories.

The problem with free trade is just like any other philosophy which says that we should leave it all up to the market - 'the market' is only interested in making money, by any means it can. There's only consideration for ethical or moral implications if they're forced on the market by law.