FW: [PEN-L] On free trade Re: Query from a Venezuelan

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

Title: FW: [PEN-L] On free trade Re: Query from a Venezuelan

Chris Burford writes:
>The so-called free trade of the present period is no more than
>international capital giving itself the freedom to price fix unhindered,
>the freedom to exercise its plans without let, the freedom to use one
>group of workers to compete against another on a world scale.
>There is a historically progressive side to this and abstract opposition
>or support is niether here nor there.

that's right. It's important to distinguish "free trade" in theory (the general lowering of tariffs and quotas on imports and the end of export subsidies) and what it usually means in practice (free movement of capital but usually not labor, the imposition of US-style intellectual property rights on the world, partial lowering of trade barriers (only by those countries with less political-economic clout), etc.)

For those who want a critique of "free trade" in theory, see Ravi Batra's THE MYTH OF FREE TRADE. As usual with his popular writings, he's quite over the top, but he does present an alternative for a big country such as the US or a Latin American free trade zone: protection from international competition _plus_ encouraging competition within the protected area. Such a system would be (1) conservative of current social arrangements and (2) promoting the bourgeoisie inside the protected area, as Marx points out.

Of course, in the establishment of a Latin American Free Trade Zone would be quite destructive of current social arrangements (even excluding the US from the mix).

Jim