Talk:Free trade/Archive 1

Effects on American Jobs

How does free trade impact job security in the US?

Economics is very ideological, though many economists won't admit to that. However, economics is also scientific in methodology, and no economic theory is academically supported unless it is supported by real world statistics. If you're a follower of the neo-classical and related schools, then you believe that economic efficiency is the goal and only what can be mathematically modeled should be studied. Because "job security" can't be quantified, it can't be modeled, and so can't be part of neo-classical/econometric analysis. On the other hand, "job security" is an arbitrary term to begin with, and better measures like "unemployment" must be taken into account.

Alternative schools: institutionalist, behavioral, ecologic, and so on -- believe that economics must deal with society as a whole. Their studies indicate that the damage done to job security from free trade outweights the benefits from lower prices. E.g., British economist Richard Layard -- "Happiness: Lessons from a New Science" -- notes that what makes people happy are things like family relationships, unemployment and fear of unemployment, community relationships, and so on -- and people feel these are more important than the cheaper consumer prices that come with economic efficiency.

Specifically, free trade affects job security by forcing businesses to compete with companies overseas that have advantages the domestic company doesn't, like lower wages, lack of occupational safety controls, lack of environmental controls, lack of product testing, etc. This produces a situation where employees either can be laid off, or are afraid of being laid off, at seemingly productive companies.

There are related effects as well, such as holding down wages. Despite a large productivity gain for US workers over the past 25 years, inflation adjusted income for the bottom 40% of the population have declined, income for the next quintile up are basically the same, the next quintile shows a small improvement, and the top quintile shows a 120% improvement. (The top quintile gets a heavy share of its income from non-wage sources, like stock options and capital gains.) At least part of this lack of improvement for most Americans is considered (by non-neo-classical economists) to be the result of free trade.

(I neglected to sign this before.) Ericbalkan 15:30, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Removed list

Any comprehensive list of opponents and proponents of free trade would be huge (the current list only includes US examples). Such a list also doesn't take into account the variety of views out there (I don't think anyone is completely, 100% pro- or anti-free trade) - so any such lable would be subjective and NPOV on our part.

Long story short, I deleted the list. If someone has a better idea by all means bring it back (maybe a list of groups taking a strong position on free trade). -- stewacide 05:28, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Will someone check out "history of free trade"?

There is an article there that is almost a stub... doesn't make much sense. Maybe someone should merge or connect it with the much better history in this free trade article

• Given the time this merge has been suggested (appears to have gone up on the article to be merged in on Nov 5th 2005 without objection, I will perform the merge now. The reason the source article existed seems to be that it did have a lot more content (a chronology of free trade), but this has been absorbed into the more general History of international trade. Nige 14:15, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

I have recently been reading Henry Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor. Was it common in the 1840s and 1850s for "Free Trade" to be also seen as free within a country? He was the founder of a number of journals and he felt free to reprint other people's work and yet he deplored the effects of a free labour economy writing about the ensuing poverty.DonBarton 11:12, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Article seriously needs to be reworked

I know it is difficult to work several hundred pages of an economic textbook into an article, but this one has quite a few fundamental flaws. The "Argument for Free Trade" section is basically wholly incorrect. It is in fact the argument against tariffs, but does not recognise that tariffs can be selectively used to result in a net transfer of wealth *into* the country. The arguments presented against free trade are all specious, simplistic arguments that have long been refuted and are not even remotely NPOV.

Actually, I read the rest of the article and it is essentially a ridiculously biased exponent for the "case against free trade". I'm not getting into a wikipedia pissing match with some biased pundits, but I suggest the author, who references Paul Krugman himself, actually read some of Krugman's textbooks. The author will note, after having done so, that most of the so-called "arguments against free trade" are addressed deep into "International Economics" (6th Ed), on page 23, under the heading "Misconceptions About Comparative Advantage"

sigh

• • re-work is now in progress. I rearranged the content into more coherent sections (splitting arguments for/against into their own sections... moving content about applicability of theory in modern world to its own section, etc. Will do more work later on. Also tried to wiki link more of the terms. Feco 02:53, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

did some more work on it. If anyone can provide help on the graphics (look at the article and you'll know what I mean, please let me know on my talk page. I'll gladly send you the original Excel file used to generate the graphs. Feco 06:49, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

ix-nay on the request for graph help. The ugly, first-draft graphs have been banished. Hopefully the new ones are prettier. Feco 18:11, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

-- The fact that most common arguments for or against Free Trade are specious & ideological doesn't mean that they aren't important. I'm not sure if this is why the "article seriously needs to be reworked", but I think it has to be better organized, because there are many points that should be covered. (Even if those points have been refuted in Krugman's excellent books, few agree with the academic approach to economics - as he ruefully discusses.) Anyway, I've tried to organize the arguments against free trade into sub-sections, but there was one part I couldn't really save:

" In this view it is unfair to greatly disrupt a smaller set of individuals in order to provide small benefits to a larger set (in the form of cheaper goods and services). Free trade may optimize the total benefits, but may cause heavy suffering for those at the "ends" of the curve. One illustrative analogy is giving 99 non-starving people extra bread but chopping off the leg of one person to compensate for the extra bread. Economists allegedly are down-playing the suffering by using a "flat" scale rather than one that prevents extremes. A psychological case can perhaps be made to weigh extremes heavier in terms of "social impact" because extreme changes impact a person's psychology more than subtler changes. For example, a small "pop" may merely cause one to look around, but a large "bang" can trigger heart-attacks, anxiety disorders, etc."

I mentioned Welfare economics but its hard to keep a NPOV tone if you compare trade to involuntary amputation or surprise heart attacks, so I've not included this in the re-organization of this section. Any thoughts?

The main thing is; we musn't ignore simplistic, refuted arguments, because they are:

• Noteworthy.
• Commonly believed.
• Entertaining to mock.

By the way, why didn't the original poster change the main page (with annotations explaining the mainstream point of view) rather than add comments here? Aren't we supposed to change the article? Is it preferable to make Talk Page criticisms? I think that Feco's re-organization is proceeding on the right lines, would it be better to leave it to him?

Wragge 13:28, 2005 Apr 28 (UTC)

The article is definitely making progress. Per wiki's "Be Bold", I tried to re-organize the content without removing anything. In general, if you see a clear problem with the article, make the change if it's likely to be uncontroversial. The TALK page is more to address revert conflicts and content decisions. Be bold (and then wait for other users to validate your boldness). I made changes like splitting the for/against arguments into their own sections... fairly obvious stuff. From there, Wragge has done a lot of work flushing out sections of the article. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before someone flags NPOV because the pro arguments have grown much larger than the anti arguments. This condition is not NPOV! If you think the article is weak in the anti perspective, add things (within the usual wiki guidelines). Feco 18:11, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I split up the criticisms section into economic and sociopolitical criticisms; I think that this reflects the divide in arguments against free trade. I also added a number of sociopolitical arguments against free trade, though I think that a similar section for sociopolitical arguments in favor of free trade should be added. I might get on that when I have time. Adam Faanes 06:24, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

I think Adam's subdivision into economic/sociopolitical arguments is a step forward, but when I open this page all I see is a massive Table Of Contents (mostly my fault, but it doesn't make the page very welcoming). This is such a big topic it almost has to be split across multiple articles, doesn't it? Questions:

1. How big should we allow the page to get before splitting it?
2. Maybe the qualitative arguments should be split away from the mathematical or graphical arguments whilst keeping pro and anti free trade together?
3. If we create an "Arguments against free trade" definition article, can this still be NPOV if: (a) it isn't on the main "free trade" page, and/or (b) it contains counter-arguments?
4. Should we separate those arguments confined to academic "economic" circles from the points made in popular debate?
5. Regarding Feco's point about equal space to arguments for and against, does a diagram count as 1000 words? What is the best metric for balance in an article?

My Rhetorical answers:

1. This page should be attractive as welll as rigorous, that means it needs more 'generic' pictures of markets and tankers and mono-cultured agriculture which will draw in the eye, and be a readable size - recommended by Wikipedia as 32Kb, I believe. That size seems about right to me, so there is already far too much text here.
2. I think there should be a Ricardian argument for Free Trade page with the history of David Ricardo's development of the concept, the prevailing views at the time, the impact of the theory, and then the graphs, equations, and possibly some responses. I don't think that the lay (non-economist) reader will want to scan through graphs or equations even of the simplest kind, even though they might be interested enough to reach this page.
3. I don't think we should break down the page into "pro" and "anti" positions, that doesn't seem a very natural grouping to me. I think it would be better to split it into "historical arguments", "technical arguments", "political arguments", and maybe even "specious arguments".
4. Yes.
5. I think accurate reportage is a better measure of balance than the amount of space given to a particular position. What are the main points of the various arguments? How many people are for and against them? Who, and why?

Wragge 10:00, 2005 May 6 (UTC)

re #2 above... there's somewhat of an overview at Comparative advantage... the more detailed analysis I'm working on is much more technical. Does Comparative advantage sort of fit what you're looking for? Feco 20:08, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Yes - the comparative advantage Northland trading with Southland example covers the Ricardian sheme, infact I made some minor edits to this page earlier today. I have thought a bit more about this; I think my main point is that we don't have enough space to give a textbook demonstration of each point in a single article. That probably means that anything single argument taking more than a couple of pages needs its own article, doesn't it? Wragge 20:43, 2005 May 6 (UTC) My opinion: Comparative advantage is a good article, but probably shouldn't be overburdened with the discussions from this page (Free trade).

I think the article is more or less sound. The graphical analysis related to "why tariffs are bad" needs to be tightened up. This is elementary trade theory - the kind undergraduates are forced to learn and then forget. Most tariffs permit imports of some quantity or another, so include them in the core of your analysis. Since quotas are so important in trade policy today, you need to discuss tariffication of them and other related issues. By the way, your indifference curves aren't convex to the origin. With the same consumption of one good, the consumer is indifferent between the consumption of two quantities of the other good. Yeah, these are technical issues, but the analysis is simpler with them than without them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.209.131.44 (talk • contribs) 22:44, 20 June 2005

This page needs a serious editing job. It is way too long. Focus on basic theory, some empirical data, and basic arguments for and against. There are many satellite internal links to flesh out the details. Remember: a student not knowing anything at all about free trade doesn't need all the angles, just those that are most important - the pillars of a basic understanding of free trade. Myself, I'd cut about half the material and then insert another sixth or so (Overall cut: one-third or so). That would be far less intimidating. —Preceding unsigned comment added by FLetch (talk • contribs) 22:27, 23 June 2005

None of you seem to know what free trade IS, free trade WOULD mean no subsidies or trade barriers from the developing world. It's not free trade thats the enemy here it's unbalanced one way unfair trade. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.70.239.172 (talk • contribs) 06:41, 30 July 2005

From Peter Johnson (05:46, 9 November 2005 (UTC)) Regarding the criticisms above about the article becoming too long: What use is Wikipedia as an encyclopedia if the articles aren’t... well... encyclopedic (comprehensive)?

Re length: the advantage of hyperlinks is that you don't need all the info in one place like a printed encyclopedia. You can have shorter articles with links to related topics the reader can follow for more info.

I also have to say: this article is terribly biased. It has the following problems: - it assumes protectionism (tariffs) as the main objection to free trade. (It may be that from the corporate world, but not from the public.) Anyone who's picked up a newspaper lately knows that the objection to poison toothpaste or lead-based paint is not one of tariffs. It's restricting products from entering a country that don't adhere to the same standards as products made domestically. (Fair trade vs free trade) - the author gets carried away with his own argument. For instance, in the 2nd paragraph, he says that classical free trade theory is substantiated by Richardo's analysis. This is like saying that the Theory of Relativity is substantiated by Einstein's analysis. The author obviously doesn't understand what the word substantiated means, or doesn't care. - if you're going to present a market model based on certain assumptions, you should say what those assumptions are. For instance, free trade is based on the assumption that the goal of society is cheaper goods. Lots of social scientists outside the neo-classical economics world will disagree with this. - it's really not clear from the article -- maybe the length is a problem -- that free trade is an experimental theory that's never really been tried, at least not successfully. The US has never had free trade, and still doesn't. (Prof Pietra Rivoli, a free trade proponent, intended writing a book about free trade using Chinese made t-shirts as an example -- but found they're made from heavily subsidized Texas cotton.) In the 19th century, Britain and some other European countries had no tariffs, but this was at a time that they were colonizing Africa and SE Asia and forcing people there to supply raw materials at dirt-cheap cost. So that's hardly free trade. Otoh, there are lots of examples of where free trade went wrong, as in Africa and Latin America, after the World Bank and IMF pushed countries into removing trade barriers. Even the World Bank admits their policies did not help anyone. - lots more

So, anyway, there is some good info in the article, and it looks like people spent a lot of time on it, but the good stuff is overcome by the bias. I tried making some additions to it, like adding a link to the Wiki fair trade article, but someone deleted them. Oh well. Anyway, my thinking is that Wiki shouldn't be used for propagandizing a particular ideological viewpoint -- some social scientists have begun referring to Free Trade as a religion -- and I hope I'm not alone in thinking that if someone can't write an article without being upfront about his biases and assumptions, then he shouldn't be writing an article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ericbalkan (talk • contribs) 01:04, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Infection point

It writes: "The first two images above assume a state of autarky, which means no trade occurs between the two countries. If free trade is possible, the green line is the production possibilities frontier for the entire world. The world PPF is made up by combining the two countries' PPFs. Linear PPFs will always combine to form a shape with an inflection point, as shown at right."

According to my background in maths, that's not an inflection point. Can somebody check it?

PATT. --PBS27

The paragraph isnt quite clear in its wording, but equilibrium in this economy doen not occur at an inflection point, as per the definition of the term. The social indifference curve with trade will touch the outer point of the green PPF (as this would yield maximum utility for the economy), but it is not possible to calculate this point with calculus as it is not a point of tangency (and thus not an inflection point), but it is the point of equilibrium... and such equilibriums are usually assosiated with inflection points. Updating the picture, incorporating the worlds indifference curves with trade, would be good as it will show how this curve yields greater utility than the worlds indifference curve under auturky. —Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])

As I understand it, an inflection point is where the curvature changes sign: a zero in the second derivative. The distinctive point in the graph shown is an extreme in the second derivative (sometimes called an elbow?), which would be a zero in the third derivative if the curve were smoother. —Tamfang 18:25, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I also have one more point. Refering to the two pictures below:

In these two pictures we see a couple of indifference curves that are incorrectly shaped. Such curves break the assumptions of the model and need to be fixed. The curves need to be shaped like those in the picture below:

I am computer illiterate and have tried to fix the problems, but cant get a set of curves to look so neat. Someone elses help would be appreciated.

Dupz 14:35, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Thx for the reply. Why are they(the indifference curves) incorrectly shaped Dupz?

--PBS27 21:13, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Sorry I've taken so long PBS27, but I have finally found time to give you an answer. The problem with these curves is that they show that a person is indifferent between having 5 rice, and 4 meat, or 5 rice and 6 meat. This goes against the assumption of "non-satiation" or that "more is better than less". As you'd see if we increase consumption of meat beyond 6 we see that this would fall on an indifference curve that is less than the present one. Again, it would be incorrect to assume that having more of a good thing would make you worse off.

Dupz 09:18, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Thx Dupz. You are right with "non-satiation". However, I believe this assumption can be relaxed. We can plot an indifference curve for a person that does not follow this assumption. I was looking for a support of this idea and I found this Talk:Indifference_curve#67.42.28.222.27s_Assumptions. Maybe you can take a look.

The definition says: indifference curve represents combinations of two goods to which an economic agent is indifferent. IMHO: when creating models economist often add the "non-satiation" principle to make the analysis straightforward.

As a bottom line, I agree that it's more appropriate to use the traditional shape in this article, as you have suggested. :-)

--PBS27 12:22, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes, please correct the graphs. Thanks, --Niku 00:17, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Some explaination please.

"Obfuscation of corporate accounts (possibly legal)"

Why is it "possibly legal"? Could anyone explain?

Shushinla 17:34, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Clean-up?

Wouldn't it be better to move the arguments sections to a new page (Free Trade Controversy or Free Trade Debate) and expand/create on the same time "history of free trade", "free trade in theory" (the theory of free trade), and "(free) trade in reality" (for instance the free trade in industrial products, but not in the agricultural products, the real free trade agreements and zones, the role of the WTO and the IMF, etc.). Mjolnir1984 11:24, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Meaning of externality

In the section "Free trade causes dislocation and pain" the following two sentences appeared: "Problems associated with economic adaptation are generally not factored into the calculation of free trades' effects. In economist's jargon these issues are externalities." I deleted the 2nd sentence. The reason is that in economics, an externality means a side-effect ignored by somebody in the market because it does not affect them directly (e.g. somebody might pollute, hurting other people but not themselves, if polluting is the cheapest way to dispose of their waste and they don’t face any legal consequences). Externality does not mean something ignored by an economist. As written, the deleted sentence wrongly implied that an externality is to an economist as collateral damage is to a general. It is possible for an economist to take into consideration factors such as "problems associated with economic adaptation", and some economists do, although such factors may be difficult to quantify. If on the other hand a wiki editor does want to allege that economists tend to ignore such hard-to-measure social effects, they can go ahead and do so and cite sources, but should avoid confusion over the meaning of externality. --Niku 00:36, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

External links

I can understand the need to have links balancing both arguments, but that is not justification for having the excessive number of external links that there are now. Wikipedia is not a repository for links, and everyone linked to has their own article, or should have one. If someone wants to convert them to internal links - great, otherwise I will go through them with a blunt rake. Please see WP:EL for guidance. Thanks. -- Linkspamremover 08:45, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

What in the world?

What is this nonsense?

"The major controversy about free trade arises from the fact that the primary discussions have little to do with freedom or trade, but rather who gets to control who wins and who loses. Thus, rather than being an objective discussion about how to make trade truly free, the discussion devolves into a political war of words with each government entity, non governmental organization and special interest group trying to get the upper hand.

Some people believe the term free trade is a prejudicial term and so its use is increasingly discouraged. 'Free' is a strong, effective word. The evidence is all around: all the shopping centres; example: 'buy one, get one free.' Simple, yet effective enough to be popular with retailers - behaviour and opinion changing, a strong word. 'Free Trade' of course, is the favoured term of those who advocate unregulated trade or deregulated trade and prefer the term 'Free Trade' in the same way retailers offer, 'buy one, get one free'"

I'm fixing it. Salvor Hardin 12:09, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Removed merge tag

Removed the merge tag applied awhile ago, since 'international trade' would cover all forms of trade whether mercantilistic trade systems or imperial trade systems or protectionist trade systems or free trade systems etc. This article is specifically about free trade a different topic. Consensus has not formed to merge it, so I removed the tag. I do propose merging History of international trade here, as it speaks of Free trade history not international trade history. --Northmeister 01:51, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Edits

I included this section, and tidyed up the list. I know youre relatively new here, but its considered incivil to simply revert all changes in whole rather than make edits to particular parts.

In international trade, free trade is an idealised market model wherin trade of goods and services between countries flows unhindered by government-imposed artificial costs. The term is given to economic policies, as well as political parties that support increases in such trade.

-Ste|vertigo 18:36, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

After reconsideration, I now approve of your edits thus far here - wasn't trying to be "incivil" - just making sure that changes are not political or idealogical as 'free trade' material is very much driven by false notions and assumptions of 'truth' - even among economists - without taking into consideration actual history (most ignore the whole history of the USA until 1932) - which is more important. --Northmeister 01:29, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Not seeking to quarrel, but — Most of whom ignore the whole history of the USA until 1932? Lots of people do seem to think everything before Saint FDR was "unbridled capitalism", is that what you mean? —Tamfang 04:30, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Nope. Not in the least. Prior to FDR America generally with limited exceptions embraced the Hamiltonian system of capitalism driven by government policies to encourage: manufacturing growth - agricultural growth - and commercial growth in a "Harmony of Interest" as leading economists spoke of in the 19th century - including Henry C. Carey, Daniel Raymond, Friedrich List among others. Essentially what is forgotten is HOW America became the "Land of Opportunity" and the "Arsenal of Democracy" in the first place. It wasn't socialism and it wasn't idealized free-market capitalism either. Japan and Germany learned this; and copied with slight variance our original system for their modern economies - the German's had a history already under Bismarck - and the Japanese as well to work on. Social Market and Japanese Miracle are rooted in the old American System that was once the envy of the world - the sleeping giant that Japan feared - a national market driven to success by National banking, national infrastructure improvements by government, and a successful tariff policy to both raise revenue and prevent foreign take-over of the economy and thus control thereof. --Northmeister 12:48, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

"shown tendencies"

User:Stevertigo wrote (July 25):

It is opposed by anti-globalization and labour due to shown tendencies for abuse by wealthier states when given an "equal" playing field.

What, no response to that in almost two weeks? For one thing, what does it mean? If the assertion is that states generally favor politically-connected domestic industry in spite of talking a free-trade game, the language could be clearer. If the opposition is grounded in the notion of zero-sum competition, there's a POV problem, which could be reduced with some such phrase as "in the belief that". —Tamfang 23:38, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

This article needs to be more balanced.

What the hell happened to this article?

Looking back at the history, virtually the entire article was deleted in a "minor edit" by Mjolnir1984 on December 16, 2005. Is no one watching this article?!?! I'm tempted to revert the whole article or at least reinstate all previously deleted material. Mgunn 10:18, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

A bit more snooping by me shows that a bunch of material was moved by Mjolnir into an article on free trade debate, and that someone subsequently wiped everything out of that article. I guess not many unbiased observors are actively watching these articles.Mgunn 10:57, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Delete intellectual property and free trade section to "history of free trade" ?

That paragraph is more focussed on IP and less on free trade..... its really quite off topic imho. Is anyone really tied to it? Is anyone going to scream if I delete it? Mgunn 12:23, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Delete orange farmer analogy?

The little story about the orange farmer is misleading by way of being over-simplified. It would be more useful to use actual historical examples of where a particular sector of the economy either benefitted or suffered due to free trade policies. --HonourableSchoolboy 00:18, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

No, it is not more useful to use examples "of where a particular sector of the economy either benefitted or suffered." Removal of tariffs etc... will, depending on the circumstances (1) do nothing (2) hurt consumers and benefit producers (3) benefit consumers and hurt producers. Economic theory says that in cases (2) and (3), the benefits will outweight the losses. For example, discussing a sugar tariff and just discussing impact on US sugar farmers misses over half the story. What matters is not the effect on particular sectors, but on the whole economy. Mgunn 05:58, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

This is what I mean by over-simplified. You omit other possibilities that would produce (4), hurt consumers and hurt producers. Here's a hypothetical example: an international cartel of sugar traders introduces sugar into the US at far below the US cost of production, producing a temporary benefit to consumers while wiping out domestic producers. Then, they hike the sugar price up higher than it was before, producing net harm to consumers (see Dumping (pricing policy).) --HonourableSchoolboy 15:59, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

This isn't what happens in the real world. In the real world the cheap-labor produces his orange for $4 per orange, yet sells it for $9.95 to undercut the $10.00 orange. The undercutter takes an even bigger profit home. The consumer saves a negligable amount of money. In the real world, there is also inflation, which free-trade has never effected. If the consumer saves money then inflation would have turned into deflation. Its all a pack of lies by a bunch of greedy slavers. The biggest sin is the lie, God will punish you. 70.176.5.79 12:04, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

NPOV

With sentences like this: "Economically, global free trade is an unambiguous good" -- this article is not a neutral article, it is an advocacy article. I put the neutrality banner up accordingly. --HonourableSchoolboy 00:24, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

In the public sphere, there is a significant debate about whether free trade is good for society, but among economists, it is basically a settled question in favor of free trade (that is why the sentence begins with "Economically"). This isn't my ideological view, this is just fact. For example, a survey of approximately 300 economists stated the proposition that "Tariffs and import quotas usually reduce the general welfare of society" and asked those surveys if they agree, disagree, or agree with provisos. 72.5% agreed, 20.1% agreed with provisos, and 6% disagreed. This question showed some of the strongest consensus of ANY question they asked. If economists agree on any issue, they agree on free trade. (Note: that the word "usually" is the correct one to use because of the issue of trade diversion.) I don't dispute that MANY PEOPLE criticize free trade, but almost none are economists and almost none are tenured economics professors. I challenge you to show any evidence to the contrary. Mgunn 05:39, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

As I understand Wikipedia policy, the onus is on those who make assertions, particularly very sweeping assertions, to provide a reliable source for those assertions. My view in this case is that the article would be better off without the sweeping assertions; they are not necessary and they compromise the neutrality of the article. --HonourableSchoolboy 16:01, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with HonourableSchoolboy on this one; the burden of proof lies on the asserter (and not just on Wikipedia, but in other cases as well). Otherwise, I could assert that, say, I have a dragon living under my house and challenge you to show any evidence to the contrary. Veinor ^{(talk to me)} 17:11, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I have provided multiple reliable sources that justify my edits. For example, I've provided 1 survey of 300 economists, the introductory sentence provides another reference to another survey. If you start going down the list of prominent economists you'll find them in favor of free trade. For example, Paul Krugman, a major economist associated with the Democratic party these days is for free trade... Nobel prize winners Gary Becker, Edward Prescott, and Milton Friedman are in favor of free trade (I can keep listing, but that would not be useful.) I also invite you to read a speech by the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis available at http://stlouisfed.org/news/speeches/2004/06_15_04.html#fn All these justify the sweeping assertion that economists are almost universally in favor of free trade. There is overwhelming evidence to support my edits, and the challenge by HonourableSchoolboy has 0 references and 0 facts to support him. That's all I was saying. (In fact, I'm not aware of any prominent economist that isn't in favor of free trade.) Economists DO agree on some things, and free trade is one of them. I'm not saying free trade is not controversial, but I am saying it is not controversial among economists. Mgunn 23:21, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Please let me reiterate, Mgunn, that it is my understanding that an NPOV tag may not be simply removed by an editor who disagrees with it. Wikipedia policy says, "In general, if you find yourself having an ongoing dispute about whether a dispute exists, there's a good chance one does, and you should therefore leave the NPOV tag up until there is a consensus that it should be removed."[1] I ask you to follow the policy.

There is a lot of stuff in this article that is not sourced, and possibly OR. The comparison of free trade to technological progress seems specious to me, because technological progress raises the overall productivity of the world economy, while policies like outsourcing lower it. Whether or not the analogy is correct, it is completely unsourced. Either the editor came up with it himself, in which case it should be deleted as OR (same goes for the orange farmer analogy,) or it should be cited to a reliable source. --HonourableSchoolboy 01:58, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I'll help get some resources because the assertion is accurate according to economists. Free trade is one of those rare events were economists no longer debate it, so there is plenty of research on it. Give me a few days. (your assertion that outsourcing decrease the global economy is incorrect, in fact it is one the leading ways to RAISE the global economy) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Drewwiki (talk • contribs) 12:04, 22 January 2007 (UTC).

Please re-read my post. I said that it lowers the productivity of the global economy, by constantly replacing more productive labor (which requires eduation, technology and infrastructure) with less productive labor that is more or less consumed like a raw material - no health benefits, high mortality rates, etc. The outsourcing also adds a lot of unnecessary overhead costs (shipping your shirt all the way from Bangladesh to the Walmart probably costs more than the shirt.) --HonourableSchoolboy 14:59, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about mis-reading your comment but it appears as if you are mis-informed about the definition of productivity. Economic productivity is output/cost. There are a few ways to look at this, one way would be to just take the cost of the labor and put that under the good produced. In that case, the case which the US economic producitivity number is computed, then absolutly outsourced goods lead to HIGHER productivity. Lower cost labor that produces the same good defines higher productivity. the numerator stays the same while the denominator goes down, thus the number is higher. --DrewWiki 19:55, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

(First, there are various different producivity concepts... labor productivity is different from total factor productivity etc...) I'll agree that free trade could lower average global labor productivity in certain circumstances, but I disagree that it is automatic and I have substantial doubt it is even close to the norm. (First remember that many good things, such as reducing unemployment among high school dropouts reduces average labor producitivty...) Let's say an auto plant moves from Ohio to China, and we'll also fairly assume that the China plant is more labor intensive. This on its own would lower average labor productivity, but this misses what the Chinese workers were doing and what the US workers will be doing. If the Chinese workers were previously engaged in extremely inefficient farming practices, average global labor productivity would be increased. Also, if the productivity of US autoworkers is below the average labor producitivty of US workers as a whole, then eliminating their jobs increases average producitivity as long as they don't find work or find more productive work. (Average producitivity would be much higher if everyone without a PHD lost their job.) In any case, on its own, the impact on "average global labor producitivity" is not a terribly useful metric for analyzing whether a policy is beneficial or not. -- Mgunn 20:32, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Also, as recently pointed out in an Economist article on "Ethical Food," most fuel consumption related to buying foreign grown food comes from the consumer driving to and from the grocery store and NOT from transporting the food from Brazil/wherever to the grocery store (this is because transport to the grocery store is done in bulk). For this and other reasons, the buying local argument breaks down upon analysis. If it were actually more efficient to buy local, then that would be reflected in the price. -- Mgunn 20:32, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

The comparison to technology is more of a loose high level comparison (obviously there are differences), and I'm open to debate on its inclusion. (I've read the comparison in several places such as The Economist magazine, the CATO institute, and several others). The point is that if you have some supernew glass company that undercuts your competition by 50%, the effect will in many ways be similar if the lower cost comes from (1) Some new fangled technological machine or (2) the "technology" of low price foreign labor. Much opposition to free trade is because of the impact on domestic workers, which would be the same in both cases. I'll admit, in the review of material I've done this morning, this isn't a comparison that is regularly brought to the forefront. For now I'll take it out and remove the NPOV tag unless you have any more complaints. -- Mgunn 20:32, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I adjusted the statement to match the question posed in the AEA poll, and specified that we are dealing with American economists -- I doubt that you would get a similar result by asking, for example, South Korean economists. I took out Milton Friedman because he is something of an extremist on this topic, and I would not assume his views, or his claims of a consensus, to represent an actual consensus. But I have no problem citing the AEA study as it stands. --HonourableSchoolboy 22:06, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Milton Friedman is a Nobel Prize winning Economist, it is mis-representing the truth if you take him out becuase you deem him "an extremest" I will put him back into the article —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Drewwiki (talk • contribs) 22:12, 22 January 2007 (UTC).

I'm sorry, but I think you just lost all credibility HonourableSchoolboy by calling possibly the most influential and highly regarded economists of the 20th century an "extremist." I don't think anyone with even a modicum of economics training would make such a charge. Please stick to editting topics that you are familiar with and stop POV pushing. -- Mgunn 22:30, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

NPOV Part 2 (RfC)

How can it be proven that "almost all" economists agree rather than "most" If the burden of proof is on those who believe it is "almost all" wouldn't we have to come up with a total list of all economists and then list all those who do not believe this. We can agree this is impossible. How about we take a look at prominant economists respected by thier peers and see what thier thoughts on this are. This can be done by looking at peer reviewed economic journals

--DrewWiki 22:58, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually I've met that burden by citing multiple surveys along with statements on a number of economists in the field that are familiar with the modern state of the field. The evidence is overwhelming, and HonourableSchoolboy is misrepresenting reality by reclassifying 93% from "nearly all" to "most." Other edits just made were amateur insertions of material found elsewhere on Wikipedia for, I believe, the intent of advancing anti-free trade POV. Please discuss on talk page HonourableSchoolboy before making any additional changes. I've assumed good faith, but WP is not a soapbox and please do not edit articles if you are not familiar with the material. My job isn't to be your HonorableSchoolboy's personal teacher explaining in depth why each edit is correct or incorrect. If he's not willing or able to be constructive, then I see no choice but to seek administrative mediation. Mgunn 23:13, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Mgunn, please read Wikipedia:Edit_summary#Recommendations. You deleted, without explanation, references to Carey and List, which makes it look like you are trying to re-write history. Also, adopting a patronizing tone does not lend your argument more credibility. The fact of the matter is, under the Wikipedia:NPOV policy, it is generally better to present a topic neutrally, rather than making claims like "almost all economists support free trade," or "the broad consensus of the economics profession is that free trade is a large and unambiguous net gain for society." Note that you are citing polls that are taken among American economists, and leaving the reader to assume that this holds true for the entire world. It is not necessary to make such grand claims in order to inform the reader about free trade, and it turns the article into advocacy. --HonourableSchoolboy 00:54, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I now have cited 3 separate surveys, a nobel prize winning economist, and the former head of the President's Council of Economics Advisors who all testify that the broad concensus of the economics profession is that free trade is a clear net benefit to society. Mgunn 05:35, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Btw, you (honorableschoolboy) previously said, "I doubt that you would get a similar result by asking, for example, South Korean economists." Just to let you know, the US and South Korea are currently negotiating a bilateral free trade agreement.[2] At least the economists in South Korea with influence believe in free trade. I think you should concede that you are simply wrong here hschoolboy and not particularly well informed on the subject matter. Mgunn 06:17, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Good points Mgunn

--DrewWiki 12:09, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I notice that this nonsensical statement has been restored: "The Constitution of the United States explicitly prohibits state governments from enacting barriers to trade between citizens and firms of the various 50 states, making the United States the largest empirical example of free trade in the world." The US is one sovereign state, not a collection of 50.

In addition to the material deleted by Mgunn about Henry Carey and Friedrich List, I think it would be appropriate to include, in the History section, this quote from Congressman (later President) William McKinley in 1882: "Free trade may be suitable to Great Britain and its peculiar social and political structure, but it has no place in this republic, where classes are unknown, and where caste has long since been banished; where equality is a rule; where labor is dignified and honorable; where education and improvement are the individual striving of every citizen, no matter what may be the accident of his birth, or the poverty of his early surroundings. Here the mechanic of today is the manufacturer of a few years hence. Under such conditions, free trade can have no abiding place here." My impression is that free trade advocates which to suppress the fact that in earlier phases of American History, free trade was considered unamerican.

I have posted a request for comment to get some outside input on this dispute. --HonourableSchoolboy 16:00, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't dispute that the US historically has had tariffs, and that a number of early economists believed in tariffs (others such as Adam Smith did not). If you want to build up the history of free trade in balanced way, feel free to go ahead. -- Mgunn 18:13, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

All right, I will. If you don't like what I add, please make your objections specific. --HonourableSchoolboy 04:30, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

On the topic of "The Constitution of the United States explicitly prohibits state governments from enacting barriers to trade between citizens and firms of the various 50 states, making the United States the largest empirical example of free trade in the world." It wasn't automatic that the US had to be a free trade area, but the dormant commerce clause has blocked trade restrictions imposed by individual states. Even in the past 20 years, several restrictions have been struck down by the Supreme Court involving wine [3] and trucking [4] because of the dormant commerce clause. -- Mgunn 18:13, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

My comment about the issue of economists and their beliefs about free trade. I'm not sure that the reference to the proportion of economists that endorse free trade is usefully located in the article lead. This ultimately boils down to a positive vs. normative discussion. What does it mean anyway to "support" free trade. Some economist's might argue that free trade is a laudable policy goal, but that because of political opposition, actual trade policy will, at best, approach the ideal of free trade slowly.

I would take the tack that the article lead should seek to describe what is meant by free trade in economics (as well as other disciplines), and then to reserve a section or other place for a description of the question of support for free trade as a policy (rather than theoretical proposition). From a scientific viewpoint, it does not matter how many members of a discipline support an idea or theory: what matters is what can the theory explain. From a political perspective of course the issue of how many economists "support" free tade does matter (by the way I am a strong proponent of free trade and a member of the discipline). I do think that it would be relevant in the article lead to briefly mention the issue of efficiency vs distributional effects of free trade.

One can legitimately believe that free trade is efficient (which in this case would mean those that lose, could be hypothetically compensated by the winners), but that the distributional consequences of free trade is such that as a policy it should be managed by the government. Doing something along these lines would go a long way to establishing NPOV

Joel Kincaid 18:18, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Understanding why economists support free trade is is inherent to understanding what free trade is. Understanding why physicists believe in gravity is important to understanding what gravity is, and understanding why biologists believe in evolution is important to understanding what evolution is. To be balanced, the lead states both who support it and who oppose it, and this in no way violates NPOV. -- Mgunn 18:34, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

The same argument being advanced here to remove references to economists would be equally applicable to the evolution article to remove this line, "With its enormous explanatory and predictive power, this theory has become the central organizing principle of modern biology, providing a unifying explanation for the diversity of life on Earth." Nearly all biologists will subscribe to that statement, but the religious right will take issue with it. Does it violate NPOV? Of course not. It is a factual statement about the state of the biology field. The line about economists is a factual statement about the state of the economics field and should likewise remain. -- Mgunn 18:34, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Having just reread the NPOV policy again, I agree with you that at the current point in time, the language does conform to NPOV. Specifically, I would consider this to be a "fact about an opinions". So consider the last sentence of my previous post retracted. Having said that, I still feel that the issue of support should be in the article but not in the article lead.

Please note the text that you cite from the evolution page actually supports my earlier contention that what matters is not how many people believe a theory, but rather what can be explained by the theory (i.e. explanatory and predictive power).

I am not advancing an argument to remove references for economists -- but rather to clean up the aricles lead. I am suggesting that a section on free trade policy or something similar be created to house those discussions.

Joel Kincaid 18:58, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

It's kind of a peculiar situation with these mixed political/scientific topics. Following WP:LEAD, "the lead should be capable of standing alone as a concise overview of the article..." To explain free trade, I think you have to explain what free trade does (creates winners & losers, but wins are bigger). The complication is that among the economists, it isn't controversial what free trade does, but among the general population, it is. -- Mgunn 19:57, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

One possible approach would be to say something like, "According to economists, (blahblahblahblah)" Or if you wanted to qualify it more, "According to nearly all economists, (blahblahblahblah)" And then you could have some counterpoint saying "Labor and anti-globalization say (bblahblahblah)" That said, I think the sentence in question, "Intellectually, this arrangement is supported by microeconomic analysis and nearly all economists, who argue that the benefit of trade is a net gain to both trading partners and that the gains from trade outweigh the losses" is accurate and quite reasonable. I actually think changing it probably introduces more problems. If you remove "nearly all" then someone is going to come in and add "some" (which is wrong/misleading) because a lot of random editors can't fathom that there actually is agreement on this subject. If you remove "and nearly all economists," then random editors will come in and say, "POV!! Is there really agreement on this?!?!?" I really think the most honest thing to do is to have a structure that briefly states "Nearly all economists think X"... cite it, and have "Free trade critics in labor etc... think Y". just on a side note, when i first came across this article several months ago, it had been totally vandalized and ransacked by non-sensical anti-free trade POV edits, and no one was watching it. (Gogo Wikipedia *sigh*) -- Mgunn 19:57, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I took out the word "support" maybe this is a bit better... -- Mgunn 20:04, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Popping by from RfC: perhaps the solution is in rephrasing things so that you talk about prevailing economic theory, rather than a greater-than-half fraction of all the economists on the planet? There'll always be a question of what percentage of economists (and what qualifies them), but current dominant principles are more easily proveable. Things like "according to most economists" always strikes me as weasel-wordy, but a statement like "dominant economic theory" seems more solid. --MattShepherd 14:36, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

It isn't most economists, it's approximately 93%. -- Mgunn 17:57, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Mgunn, just out of curiosity, where are you getting that statistic from? I read your cite (I assume you mean the one you linked to after the "almost all" sentence [5]) and the only 93% in it is "the majority of respondents—93 percent to be exact—think that member countries in international trade agreements should be required to maintain minimum standards for working conditions." That's far from being gung-ho about free trade. Your other cites don't include any mention of 93% either, at least as far as I can tell. Given that none of the cites on the page mention this mythical 93% figure -- and that your revered St. Louis document actually leads with "I’m sure that this audience knows that most economists support free-trade policies," I'm going to have to go back to the "most." Because who are we to question the wise and wonderful William Poole, Mgunn? I know I am not fit to, and if he says most economists, so must the article say. Because that's the cite that follows the sentence. All good?--MattShepherd 21:20, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

To be fair to you, upon further reading of the Poole article: more than 90 percent generally agreed with the proposition that the use of tariffs and import quotas reduced the average standard of living; that is a sort of fuzzy dance around the idea that free trade is good, but it's not "support free trade." It's "generally agree that the use of tariffs and import quotas reduced the average standard of living." There's a looooong walk between that and "supports free trade," no? I suspect you're reading things and extrapolating robust enthusiasm for free trade to support your own POV. Again -- if you have real, verifiable, solid data, such as a survey of every single economist on the planet, feel free to drop some numbers. I honestly believe you mean well, but if you're taking "doesn't like tarrifs" and transforming that into "supports free trade," you're making a jump that any reputable economist would shudder at -- an intuitive leap from a fact (and a pretty fuzzy fact, at that -- "generally agreed?" That's loosey-goosey right there) into conjecture. If I had a choice between chocolate and peanut butter and I said "I don't want chocolate," that doesn't parse directly into "I love peanut butter." It just means I don't like chocolate. Incidentally: searched the Poole speech for "nearly all" and "almost all," just in case. Nothin'. Just most economists. --MattShepherd 21:39, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Well this is a good discussion of the issue raised here. First, I'm assuming good faith in what I've read to this point. The original source for this material is an AEA proceedings article (J. R. Kearl; Clayne L. Pope; Gordon C. Whiting; Larry T. Wimmer, A Confusion of Economists?, The American Economic Review, Vol. 69, No. 2, Papers and Proceedings of the Ninety-First Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association. (May, 1979), pp. 28-37.)

The gist of this article is as follows: The authors develop a survey of economists asking whether they "Generally Agree", "Agree with Provisions", or "Generally Disagree" with 30 selected propositions drawn from economics. They used a stratified sampling method, with a sample size of 600 economists. They sampled economists from the private sector, government, academics, etc.

The main goal was to use the response patterns to develop a measure of consensus on various economic propositions. They had two main hypothesis which were more or less supported by the study: That there would be more consensus for those proposition that rested upon micro as opposed to macro foundations, and that those propositions that were largely "positive" as opposed to "normative" would have higher consensus. They found, in addition, that there was more consensus regarding proposition that tended to rely on price mechanism (as opposed to public goods and government provision of goods).

So. What was the proposition that engender the highest level of consensus? The proposition that "Tariffs and import quotas reduce general economic welfare". Overall, 81 percent responded that they General Agreed, 16 percent Agreed with provisions, and 3 percent Generally Disagree. Using individual response data and further analysis to construct a measure of consensus, again the "free trade" proposition displays (along with a rent control question) the highest level of consensus.

Now to the inevitable question: Is "Tariffs and import quotas reduce general economic welfare" the same thing as "free trade"? My answer is a qualified yes. Free trade implies the absence of tariffs and import quotas. However, support for free trade as a principle versus support for free trade as a policy is arguably different.

Bottom line on this from my perspective is that the inclusion of information about the results of this survey, and irrespective of whether it is "most", "almost all", or "96 percent "agree or agree with provisions" is not POV. (As I mentioned in my second comment here.).

I will stress again, and point all to the Evolution talk page (got to FAQ -- sorry don't know how to link directly) and you will find the following

Most scientists don't believe in evolution: This is not correct. More than 99.84% of almost 480,000 biologists and earth scientists support evolution.[1][2]However, even if more scientists disagreed with evolution, it would be irrelevant. The article is about evolution

Notice what this is saying and please read my earlier comment regarding what matters about an economic theory. I want to thank everyone thats contributing to this article and its maintainance -- its an important part of Economics which is a core topic.

Joel Kincaid 23:02, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Ok just found the magic 93 percent: The authors updated the survey (Richard M. Alston; J. R. Kearl; Michael B. Vaughan,Is There a Consensus Among Economists in the 1990's?,The American Economic Review, Vol. 82, No. 2, Papers and Proceedings of the Hundred and Fourth Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association. (May, 1992), pp. 203-209.). JSTOR LINK.

The authors find that 71.3 percent of respondants "Generally Aggree" and 21.3 percent "Agree with provisions". 71.3 + 21.3 gives up with a little rounding 93 percent. The original article may be found at JSTOR LINK. Theres also a 2000 update at the Journal of Economic Education website.

Joel Kincaid 23:23, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Wicked. Link that sucker up. Thanks for the links, Joel -- interesting reading. --MattShepherd 16:47, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

OR

Please do not remove the Original Research tag unless you are adding some source for the theory.--HonourableSchoolboy 22:39, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Why do you believe there is original research there? I'll add a few citations for you though --DrewWiki 23:45, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Because with no source citations, it just looks like a Wikipedia editor writing a pro-Free Trade essay. With citations added, the reader knows from whom the theory is coming. I appreciate the cites. Can you get some for the orange farmer "illustrative story" as well? --HonourableSchoolboy 06:44, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes later today or tomorrow i'll put up a different illustrative story that I know has a cite. Every econ txt book has one of these stories so i'll make sure that the one i put up was expressly written in a quality text book --DrewWiki 15:51, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

HonourableSchoolboy, please do not insert theories based in the work of Lyndon LaRouche and his movement or sourced to them. His views on economics and other topics are already covered thoroughly in the articles about him. -Will Beback · † · 19:38, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Ahem-- List, Carey and McKinley were all long dead before Lyndon LaRouche came along. I don't think that he can claim credit for their ideas. --HonourableSchoolboy 07:28, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Jesus was dead before Paul got involved but we all know how that turned out. LaRouche's interpretation and promotion of the ideas of List and Carey is what's in question. A single section on the "history of free trade in the United States" in an article on a global phenomenon is inappropriate unless we can provide histories from other countries as well. A history based on LaRouche sources is inappropriate no matter what. -Will Beback · † · 07:42, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

As far as Jesus and Paul are concerned, you lost me on that one. But if you are objecting to a focus on the U.S., note that throughout the article there are references to polls done only among U.S. economists. --HonourableSchoolboy 22:27, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

The LaRouche movement is the principal modern promoter of the views of List, Carey, and the American System. LaRouche-related editors have a history of inserting material promoting those views into Wikipedia articles. In this instance, the only source you provide is to a LaRouche publication. -Will Beback · † · 22:24, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

"The LaRouche movement is the principal modern promoter of the views of List, Carey, and the American System"? That's quite a feather in their cap. Do you have a cite for that, or is it OR? --Tsunami Butler 01:13, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

It's a quote from William McKinley for God's sake. The tripod site is the only place it appears online. If I provide a source from a book, will you stop harassing me? Also, the source for the material on Carey and List was the Wikipedia articles on Carey and List. Are they now "LaRouche sources"?--HonourableSchoolboy 15:34, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think a quote is necessary at all. But if you can provide a non-LaRouche source that summarizes McKinley's viewpoint on free trade it might make a suitable addition to a balanced section on viewpoints abot free trade at various times and in various places. But McKinley was only president briefly so we shouldn't give him too much prominence in this article. -Will Beback · † · 19:17, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

The point is that McKinley exemplifies the prevailing idea of the time, which you seem to wish to expunge from the history books. --HonourableSchoolboy 15:32, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Using McKinley's quote is treating him as a primary source, and asserting that he "eexmplifies the prevailing idea of the time" is either unsourced POV or OR. -Will Beback · † · 21:44, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Neutrality

This article is an essay advocating Free Trade. There is no attempt to convey information in a neutral, encyclopediac fashion. It is full of unsourced assertions like this one: "While critics point to the unemployed and working poor as evidence of the dangers of free trade, significant populations within these groups believe that more free trade is vital for their economy." It should be re-worked from the ground up. --HonourableSchoolboy 15:00, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

The line you are complaining about was recently added by some anonymous IP. It is gone now. --- Mgunn 16:39, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

It's still an advocacy article. It reminds me of the End of History theory of Francis Fukuyama -- the message of the article as it presently stands is "the debate is over, Free Trade has won." It's hardly encyclopediac. --HonourableSchoolboy 22:06, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of paragraph

I feel this paragraph should be left in after the illustrative story, which fails to point out any of the pitfalls of Free Trade:

"This example assumes that there are no monetary costs resulting either from the unemployment caused, or issues of possible health or safety resulting from imports."

It has been deleted twice already, so I would like to discuss the issue before it turns into an edit war. Soaringgoldeneagle 12:03, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

IMHO it is obvious that the example tries to explain the overall benefits of free trade. The example even states that the first farmer goes out of business. Most likely the farmer is going to be pretty pissed off by the removal of the tariff. Maybe he will kill himself or maybe he will open start a new search engine and make himself a brand new millionaire. It is pretty irrelevant for the example. As for the health issues on the oranges, at first I thought it was a sarcastic remark.The section starts with "This story is a simplistic example ..." I think that such caveat should be sufficient. Bakersville 12:59, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

The simplistic example refers to monetary losses in passing but does not mention what any of them are. So it seems reasonable to include some reference to the second-order effects. Perhaps the health issues don't need to be mentioned here, however.--Gregalton 13:13, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

The term monetary costs from the unemployment is not adequate. Because the other side of the coin is that it is a productivity gain (or the gain to the consumers). The paragraph makes that clear. Bakersville 13:42, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I've made some changes, I don't think it's controversial, but look forward to comments. The text did mention the losses, but I (for one) didn't find it that clear.--Gregalton 13:49, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

The addition may not add much but it is very nicely crafted. Ok with me. Bakersville 14:00, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

If the story was in the context of a balanced article, I would accept it as it stands, but currently it is in the context of a heavily pro-free trade article. Soaringgoldeneagle 15:39, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Illustrative story

What's our source for the "Illustrative story"? Or is it original research? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 16:41, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

When I reposted the illustration I assumed by mistake that it was sourced by the reference at the end. The reference seems to be related to the price of fruit in Japan and not to the numeric example. I agree, that as it is now, it seems in violation of non original research. Bakersville 20:29, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

While I can see the value of an illustration like this, we should find one that has been prepared by a reliable, and preferably neutral, source. Perhaps a textbook. In the meantime, I'm going to remove it again. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 22:07, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't add much anyhow. I agree that the illustrative should be removed. Bakersville 12:27, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

RfC: Free trade history

Background discussion

The only source for the "history" section (besides a source for one direct quote) has now gone dead. We need to find some sources for this material, or consider deleting it if none are available. I'd also note that it is highly U.S.-centric. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 19:40, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Further, it's mostly about U.S. protectionist policies, not about free trade. I don't see why that is relevant here instead of at protectionism. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 01:22, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

You knew the source for the reference, why didn't you put it in? Please refrain from WP:Point. Further, exploring the American historic role vs. Free trade is perfectly legitimate for this article - the material you've perviewed at the American School already; thus your statements are out of place - if you want to improve the article - add the sources you already know ratherthan complaining here as you've already complained there and been shown the sources. --Northmeister 01:54, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't keep a running inventory of dead links. How is the history of U.S. protectionism more relevant to this article than to protectionism? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 03:29, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I've moved the section to protectionism and renamed it "Historical American protectionism". If we can write a history of free trade in the U.S. and elsewhere for this article then that'd be great. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 22:16, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I've restored it. You should not simply remove anothers contribution, without first discussing those contributions that have been in the article sometime, here in full. Such methods start edit wars considered untoward at Wikipedia. You need to give your fellow editors the benefit of the doubt WP:AGF, and be more reasonable in your approach. Demanding of others is not considered good manners. Patience is a virtue best learned when editing. I'm surprised you don't know this as an admin. --Northmeister 23:12, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I moved it to the logical location. Again, why is a history of protectionism in an article on free trade? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 23:33, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

It's a history of America's response to free-trade, not simply of protectionism. Any free-trade article must include 'free-trades' historic critics to be fair and balanced WP:NPOV. The United States did not embrace free-trade until modern times. The history of free-trade is one of conroversy, and this needs to be included in the history section. Only the British Empire, after the repeal of the Corn Laws and under Victoria, embraced any sort of free trade. America was the exact opposite as was Germany prior to WWI. All of this is explained in the edit you chose to remove and is historically factual. What I particularly object to is wholesale removal (especially considering you know the material to be accurate and well sourced from previous discussions elsewhere) without completing discussion or engaging in reformation of the edit if you believe parts thereof do not belong or need revising. --Northmeister 23:51, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

The history does not mention a single proponent of free trade though it does mention by name at least seven proponents of protectionism. It doesn't cover the controversy, it only gives one side of it, the side that this article isn't about. This is not even slightly balanced. It's better in the protectionism article, where it makes sense, rather than destroying the neutrality of this article. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 00:18, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

My intention was never to 'destroy' the neutrality. If you feel this edit does this. I would suggest you offer how to fix the edit to bring balance. We can work from there. I am also interested in any suggestions you have on further historic information pertaining to the supporters of free trade - we need that information as well. The entire history of free trade is what I'm interested in; and what the reader should have in Wiki-format (summarized as much as possible etc.) of course. --Northmeister 00:39, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

To start with, we should remove the parts of the article that don't concern free trade. Then we should add material to fill in the gaps. The current history section is not about free trade, nor even about the debate between trade policies. I think we'd be much better off starting from scratch. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 00:55, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

If you want to provide a forum for working on the history section, I'll support that. Might be best to get other editors involved as well. I'm open to condensing it and including more history rather than less. Right now, we have the American perspective mostly - we need some more world history here for balance. If you have the material and references - this would be helpful to move forward with more - and weigh the article for balance perspective. --Northmeister 02:13, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

It's only eh American perspective on protectionism, we don't even have the American view of free trade, much less the views of other countries of economists. If you want to write a new version elsewhere go ahead. But whatever we have in this article should focus on free trade. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 03:12, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I understand your complaints which you stated at the outset. What you need to provide is material on what you think is lacking - so we can work together on a better history section; thus my proposal above. As far as focus - the present American section does focus on the "American view of free trade" historic and modern; so I do not see the reason behind your objections. Please initiate any temp page you wish so that we can work together on your objections and with the material you bring to this discussion. --Northmeister 03:51, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

The existing material is not appropriate for this page. I initiated a conversation and the only response I got was about dead links. I did the responsible thing and moved the information to its best location, replacing it with a brief summary. That edit was reverted. I'll initiate an RfC and see what other editors think. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 04:07, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I asked you to start a temp. page to work out your objections and to provide us with your material to balance the history section and you respond "the only response I got was about dead links"? The one link was fixed and you knew the source for it from a previous discussion we've had at American School. There was no other 'dead links' to speak of. I offered you a chance to help us out and to expand this article or to offer your thought's on how the history section should be revised and you've responded with an RFC. Where is the disconnect here? --Northmeister 12:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Start of RFC

The "Free trade" article's history section is dominated by the history of the anti-free trade movement in the United States. We need to create a more balanced history that includes more about the pro-free trade movement, and more about non-U.S. economists and trade policies. Comments or help would be appreciated. 05:58, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

The above is true in so much as it is dominated by America's history with free-trade being the leading opponent of such until modern times. There is also modern America's response to free-trade since World War II and during the Cold War where she has been the leading proponent of it. Where balance is needed; is for editors to cover more of the 'Worlds history' pertaining to free trade. It's not so much pro or con but simply the facts about Free-trades history either way. One for example can not report America's history thereof without observations that she was against free trade and be truthful to history. On the other hand material about Britain's support thereof from the Corn Law repeal on - would be greatly helpful for balance. I've offered for the above editor to give us his material edits to help balance the article and offered to form a temp. page to work out a new history section - but he decided to do an RFC instead? Any help from other editors to reformat the history section is absolutely welcome. The more material, in summary, the better for this article. --Northmeister 12:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Northmeister. I do not see the reason behind deleting the whole America's section of the article. It is informative and it has links to other wikipedia articles. If it needs to be improved (as is the case), a more constructive approach would be to start editing the section and add other similar sections on Europe and Asia. Bakersville 14:10, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

But the material isn't about free trade in America, it's about oppostion to free trade in America. It fits perfectly in protectionism, and in fact is now duplicated there verbatim. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 19:45, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

It can also be argued that is about the implementation or lack thereof of free trade policies in the US through history. Once again I think it should be improved (it is poorly sourced and imho mistaken in some assertions). Bakersville 20:51, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm totally open to revising the 'American opposition' subsection for improvement. What we need again is Will Bebacks contribution towards 'World History' in regards to free trade. This would help balance the article together with a revision of the other section which I and Bakersville may work on (considering your observations above) to improve. --Northmeister 00:48, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Why do we need duplicate material here and at protectionism? I've already proposed that we summarize the oppistion to free trade in the U.S. by saying:

• For most of the early history of the United States, protectionism prevailed over free trade policies.

While I'm open to expanding that, I don't think we need to say much more in this article about opposition to free trade in the 19th century. If we can start from there I'd be happy to add information on actual free trade polices and theories. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 03:03, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Upon further analysis of this article it is even more unbalanced than I thought initially. Here's a breakdown of the wordcount by section:

• Intro = 285
• History of free trade = 274
  • American opposition to free trade = 552
  • Present day (US based) = 178
• Economics of free trade = 627
• Opponents of free trade = 762
• Alternatives to free trade = 884
• Miscellaneous = 175
• Total = 3737
• Total devoted to opposition or alternatives = 2198
• Percentage devoted to opposition or alternatives = 59%

By the number alone, this article appears way out of balance. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 03:03, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Even without the numerical analysis I have to agree with Will Beback. The article is defiantly not NPOV and talks far more about subjects rooted in free trade rather than free trade itself. Most of this article should be removed and placed elsewhere. The "History of free trade" is hopelessly off-topic and distracted, and what's more "Economics of free trade" has less space than "Opponents of free trade". You'd think an article about free trade would spend the most space actually talking about free trade.

The article needs to be pared down to virtually nothing and rebuilt. Nailedtooth 18:10, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Nitpick: On a different note, I think that if the article says that the US was the leading nation opposed to free trade theory in the 19th century, perhaps it ought to be mentioned that while Britain and (other western European nations) may have been advocating free trade, it was at the same time their armies were conquering the countries from which they needed raw materials. E.g., by 1900, 45% of India's foreign trade was with Britain. That's free trade only in a very hypocritical sense, and probably not what Adam Smith had meant. Ericbalkan 21:58, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Question

Did you guys have a problem with a troll on this page? If so what was this users name or names? 131.89.192.112 23:31, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Removed paragraph

I removed most of this paragraph:

Developed nations sometimes demand that developing nations open their markets to agricultural goods, but then refuse to open their own markets to developing nations. Some argue also that trade barriers such as quotas and agricultural subsidies prevent farmers in developing nations from competing in local and global markets. Free trade supports the movement of goods and capital, not labor. This offers more freedom to people in developed countries than developing nations. Developed nations own more corporations and buy more imports. Often the only asset of the poor is their labor, which they are unable to trade. See Immigration.

The first sentence is irrelevant: it deals with negotiations concerning agricultural subsidies, not with a condition of free trade. "Free trade supports the movement of goods and capital, not labor" is misleading: as "free trade is normally used", it has nothing to do with labour movement one way or the other. "This offers more freedom to people in developed countries than developing nations" is opinion and it doesn't make a lot of sense; free trade gives both parties the freedom to exchange goods with each other. "Often the only asset of the poor is their labor, which they are unable to trade" ... huh? Is the author here assuming a country with no labour markets? - Nat Krause 18:12, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

'"Free trade is normally used", it has nothing to do with labour movement one way or the other,' you blatantly contradict yourself, first saying that free trade has nothing to do with labor but then there are labor markets where labor is "traded." Yes, labor is also traded, which can be witnessed by the movement of labor from Mexico to the U.S. Just because it is more commonly called immigration, does not mean it is not trade. We can obviously see what Mexico gains from this trade, capital. Money sent to families in Mexico from U.S. Migrant workers is at about 2% of it's national income. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.7.77.141 (talk) 23:12, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Anti-Arguments seem either wrong or demagogic

Full Disclosure: I am libertarian. "If food is purchased from the local farm it requires very little energy and possible no fuel to transport to the table. Delivering food produced on the other side of the world to a supermarket has an environmental impact because it requires a heavier use of fossil fuel in delivery from overseas. The organic food movement claims that there are other downsides to the globalization of the food market (for instance, that preserved food has an inferior taste)."

That is not true if the "local" farm is less productive. The local farm will then use MORE resources, whether its chemical fertilizer, or labor, which is a function of consuming other commodities or whatever. It's not so clear that one way is more pro environment than the other, though I would think that higher productivity yields less energy consumption, and so free trade actually makes better use of resources. Also, the inferior taste criticism is completely fallacious. If consumers want superior food, they will pay for it, and thus a market will meet that demand. Environmentalists' arguments only make sense when they think that basically "we dont want people to get richer, because that means they consume more. Yes, we want people to live destitute lives so that the rainforest remains pristine." Of course, they will rarely say that explicitly, but imply it in such notions as the innate value of nature separate from humans.

--BULL. Productive at what? Product? Math? Factory output? Productivity is always used by economists along with the word "efficiency." LIARS! What do you mean efficient? Productivity is meaningless without an object to act upon or an agreed upon goal. Efficient to what end? Money? What is that? Nothing but abstract power quantified... Therefore: Politics. The Lie is this: Use of a Math term, a Logic Term, to denote a political ideology.

You are ASSUMING an endgoal that you are hiding. You assume I won't agree with your endgoal thus you hide it by saying "productive" or "efficient". War is efficient dotcha know, it kills. Also it is efficient at spreading poverty and raising the birth rate. Lots of life. Lots of new technology. I don't agree with your goals. I don't like these words toyed around in these cliche arguments that tell me you know better because you use logic and I don't because you have a math to your... murder? War is OK in your efficiency and I call that killing, deliberate.

So lets not mince words of nonsense. You know little about farming. Local farming DOES use less energy, a lot less. That is actually LESS productive. Remember!? The formula of the economists is that money exchange = good, even if it is trading guns, even if it is poison or genocide [especially if]. So when I burn less gas and less pollution on my local farm I am BAD for the economy because I am not spending MORE. That is all. Economics is dead easy to understand. The statistical math is complex but the underLYING principles are dead easy, so easy they are frequently hidden because the politics is reprehensible. Superior products in terms of price? In terms of wholesomeness? Organic foods are more productive only because they cost more. Seriously.

-Cheers

Full Disclosure, I'm a Libertarian Socialist, or maybe a trickster. I speak with passion but don't fear me, I am never serious because seriousness isn't serious enough for life and death. Rusl

"Free trade favors developed nations Some argue also that trade barriers such as quotas and agricultural subsidies prevent farmers in developing nations from competing in local and global markets." This is not so much an issue of free trade but nefarious government intervention. This criticism is also totally fallacious. Said trade barriers are a lack of, not an excess of, free trade. This clause amounts to a defense of free trade.

Also, the "race to the bottom" argument assumes that A)labour and environmental protections are inherently good B)The more restrictive the better. Many would argue that enforcement of contract and simple common laws like contract at will are the only necessary labour laws, and anything more is destructive. See Germany, and generally Europe's, stagnation. Those stringent labour and environmental laws have made them mighty prosperous. But the point is that there IS an argument, and that you cannot treat the assumptions as true, whether they are or not. Also, globally harmonized wages would utterly destroy developing countries. Developed countries workers are more productive, and so, if one must employ developed or developing workers at the same rate, then the rational choice is workers from the developed countries. Poor countries could not then utilize their comparative advantage, their lower wage rates. It is like an employer's choice to hire an experienced or inexperienced worker. The former may be more productive, but the latter requires less wages, so an employer must choose. Those arguing for "harmony" are doing so out of self interest. Union members in developed countries come to mind.

Much of the argument is dressed up as criticism of free trade but really is critical of the market economy system. I refer to the "Free trade causes dislocation and pain" argument. Yes, there is "creative destruction." But there is in any market economy, where production is decided by consumers and not the state. A sudden increase in popularity in bookshelves may thrust others into working as artisans. Besides, this function is essential to maintaining and enhancing productivity. The oft quoted example is the fact that the vast majority of Americans were farmers, and now only 2%, and yet our capacity has increased tremendously. No rational person would argue that the country should have kept the vast majority of citizens as farmers.

I have not finished. But most or all of the arguments posited are just what antiglobalizers parrot. No effort was made to verify or falsify these claims. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.106.110.148 (talk • contribs) 21:42, 20 October 2005

Edit: Yes, the claims should be kept up. But Wikipedians, with consensus approval, should write whether they are valid concerns or not. I think that the topics I addressed are misleading or invalid. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.106.110.148 (talk • contribs) 21:54, 20 October 2005

I think a lot of these anti-free trade arguments might be more convincing to pro-free traders if they were put into the market failure terms that economists use, like asymmetric information, externalities, or imperfect competition, which are mathematically defensible. Contenders on free trade arguments tend to shout past each other in the language they use. But you're right - the basic argument of free trade, comparative advantage, is nothing but the optimism that people always do what's in their interest anyway, which is just as essential to laissez-faire capitalism, so criticisms of free trade are basically arguments against laissez-faire capitalism and its universal optimism about the consequences of free choice. If you think that markets are perfectly competitive, then there aren't many reasons left to oppose free trade. Adam Faanes 10:33, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Gee, I always had the impression that the Libertarianite Free-traders were Demagogic. Playing on the fears (recession), passions (greed), and prejudices (Socialist politics) of the people. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.106.248.211 (talk) 13:34, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

propaganda and lies

I really have problems with this article. I think that just because a lot of people repeat something doesn't make it right. This article paint a picture of "FREE TRADE" as this kind of neutral economic concept.

However, it is one of the most important propaganda words of our time. Even using the economic criteria many "free trade" agreements are nothing of the sort. This word is used in the public debate and the economics is not really there when it is used, it is not meant to be economics. The economics is used as a way to mystify the public, to pretend the emperor has clothes on.

However the champions of that narrow obsequious cause have taken over writing this article. In the name of being pedantic?

This article violates NPOV heavily by telling only an idealised picture of a word by the proponents who claim to own it.

We the non-economist public have a right to own and define this word differently because we are bludgeoned in the media(s) with this nonsense fuzzy nice sounding term that usually means nothing simple except a clear decrease in freedom. I suppose it rests on a neoliberal defintion of freedom. Freedom of wealth or freedom of people. I think that NPOV and the purpose of wikipedia dictates that we ought to side with freedom of people, how people are impacted. And not this nonsense propaganda about imaginary invisible hands of god freeing the market to help those who help themselves. [The American border was 'free traded' and yet it is more closed than ever. The EU border allows movement of people AND goods... etc, real information, not intangible excuses]

I suggest that the format of this be changed. The POV of the economist ideologues should be quarunteened to be it's own subsection and the focus of the rest of the article should be on usuage by everyday people effected by the word.

I think that disparaging references that blame environmentalists and unions as "special interests" should be removed.

Hey, History lesson: "Free Trade" the modern concept is pretty old, like more than a century. And yes it was discredited when people in England starved. Starving masses means your theory is a stupid one. Environmentalism is from the 70s. Protectionism was kind of an obsolete concept in the era when the environment started getting noticed. It's a nice straw man but what is it here in wikipedia 40 years later still? rusl

My opinion is that the above post is pretty much on target. I've tried adding a few things into it to make it more balanced, but it's pretty hopeless. The author doesn't seem to realize, or maybe he's just being disinguous, that economics is not a hard science but rather a collection of opposing points of view.

I've actually written a 3400-word essay on the free trade debate on my blog, http://ibrakefortrees.wordpress.com. I won't repeat that here, but I do think this article, because it's an article about a market model, absolutely needs to specify what the assumptions of that model are. E.g., that it describes a closed system, that it sets economic efficiency as a society's primary goal, that it requires specifying a monetary value even for what can't be quantified (like the effects of unemployment), that it doesn't distinguish between internal costs and external costs....

Not to mention the absolutely ludicrous statement that free trade is based on both theory and empirical evidence. The empirical evidence is very heavily against free trade. In a misguided attempt to implement the Washington Consensus in "underdeveloped" countries, the World Bank has both damaged those economies (e.g. Jamaica) and the environment (e.g. Mexico). Even if ecological damage is disregarded, economic success and free trade seem inversely related. The #2 and #3 countries in GDP -- China and Japan -- have both manipulated their currencies to maintain their export edge. On top of which, Japan has always been protectionist, and most of China's largest companies are 50% owned by the government and so set whatever prices the government decides to set, regardless of cost. Ericbalkan 22:31, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

The biggest lie perpetuated by the self-serving gluttons is that free-trade lowers the price of goods Americans buy. When a slave owner sells his cotton to a cotton mill, he marks the price of his cotton up to just under his competition's price. Not a massive drop in price, a miniscule drop in price not worth the loss of jobs in America. Eventually the slave master's competition will have to employ slaves himself to stay competative. This is the race to the bottom everyone talks about.

The second biggest lie is "Comparative Advantage." No 'people' are genetically better or worse at manufacturing certain goods. Blacks aren't genetically engineered to pick cotton, and the Japanese aren't genetically engineered to make electrons. Only in RAW MATERIALS, such as OIL and COPPER, is a country better then another. Or farming; Brazil is better at sugar cane then Wyoming. This has nothing to do with increasing labor efficiency, as "Comparative Advantage" presumes.68.106.248.211 (talk) 06:34, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Nonsensical claim

"The Constitution of the United States explicitly prohibits state governments from enacting barriers to trade between citizens and firms of the various 50 states, making the United States the largest empirical example of free trade in the world." The U.S. is one sovereign state, so it means nothing that there are no internal tariffs. You could use the same silly reasoning to argue that the USSR was "the largest empirical example of free trade in the world" while it existed. --HonourableSchoolboy 15:41, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

No, because the Soviet Union did not have free trade. Goods and services were distributed according to Gosplan. -- Mgunn 17:25, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Internal tarriffs have been the norm and not the exception throughout history. The US is the most successful economic sovereign entity in world history and as such is an example in both its use of free trade but also its tailoring of trade policy as needed for nationalistic purposes. Trade policy that is most useful when a nation is lacking industry or intellectual property is different from trade policy that is most useful when a nation has industry and intellectual property and US national economic policy over the last 200 years is a roadmap for any nation seeking emperical guidance. 4.250.132.20 20:19, 11 February 2007 (UTC) (WAS 4.250)

First of all the Constitution doesn't guarantee interstate free-trade, the commerce clause allows Congress to regulate interstate trade. To regulate is giving broad powers to Congress, not giving you free-trade slaveocrats a free hand. Second of all, the United States is one nation, one people, under one federal juristiction. If jobs goes down for Americans in one state (because the state is run by a Socialist), and the same jobs go to Americans in another state (run by a fiscal Conservative), the gross change for all Americans remains zero. International trade is the same thing, if jobs are lost in America and moved to Mexico, then Americans get screwed. Traitors. You slaveocrats lost the civil war, are you itching for more death and destruction?68.106.248.211 19:41, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I have modified the text to reflect the wording of the constitution. 1) The constitution does not bar the states from enacting barriers to trade; it delegates powers to regulate inter-state trade to the federal level (Congress) - authority which it also has for foreign trade. The subtle distinction is that this is a case where a party has the power to impose on other parties what rules apply (parallels to EU are welcome). 2) It was not at all clear it would lead to "free trade", either immediately or even a hundred and some years later, as the history shows, and it's almost certain not all the signatories were advocating unfettered trade - just that there would be a referee that wasn't in London. In practice it has been very broadly applied, even to events that some consider "internal" to the states. 3) While saying (as in the opening comment here) that the U.S. is one sovereign state sounds reasonable, it doesn't do justice to the difficult history of commerce within the U.S. At the time of the signing of the constitution, the dispute at the time of its adoption (see the Federalist Papers, Hamilton, Madison, etc) was whether or not these were sovereign states (full stop) entering into a loose confederation or states giving up a measure of sovereignty to create a new one. (Wasn't there a war on some of these issues?) At any rate, I hope that this contribution is neither jingoistic nor overly loaded. And any actual constitutional scholars or historians can now get involved in this little tempest in a teapot. ;) --Gregalton 23:43, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

MGunn: you edited this to read "The Constitution of the United States explicitly empowers the U.S. Congress the authority "to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes" in the Commerce Clause, and therefore individual states do not have that authority." (My emphasis) To me this is a tautology, but perhaps others can comment. I think the article at Commerce Clause also gives substantial support to the language about "increasingly broad interpretations": at one point, things like navigation, meatpacking, labor unions, etc., were not considered to be covered.--Gregalton 00:30, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Thats right, no state cannot devalue their currency, no state can impose tariffs on other states, no state can throw up import quotas, no state can become an oligarchy and directly lower the standard of living of its citizens to make labor investment more attractive... These free-traders are completely incapable of discriminating between interstate trade and international trade, they are fundamentally stupid.68.106.248.211 (talk) 06:49, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

In some areas the federal government has exclusive authority, in others the states have exclusive authority, and in others they have concurrent authority (state authority unless federal law preempts). The concept of the dormant commerce clause means that not only is the commerce clause a grant of authority to the federal government, but it's also a removal of authority from the states. I don't think this is obvious. -- Mgunn 08:43, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

On the issue of "increasingly broad interpretation" .... I'm just not sure that's an uncontroversial statement. It might be qualitatively right, but what's the magnitude? The Dormant Commerce Clause has been a concept since the 1820s. The language "increasingly broad" implies large change, and I'm just not sure that's right. -- Mgunn 08:43, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. I don't necessarily agree that "increasingly broad" implies large change, but rather that the breadth of interpretation has been increasing (and it was perhaps not narrow to begin with). But that's just a quibble.--Gregalton 13:37, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

NPOV against fair trade

"Free Trade can be contrasted with so-called Fair Trade (trade restricted in a way that serves the narrow interests of the group advocating state intervention)." This seems very POV to me - while "fair trade" may not necessarily be fair, "so-called implies that it isn't, and fair trade is described in what seems to me a very POV way. Soaringgoldeneagle 16:54, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Not only do I agree this is a NPOV issue - I also believe there is some kind of misunderstanding on what IS fair trade.

"Fair trade is an organized social movement which promotes standards for international labour, environmentalism, and social policy in areas related to production of Fairtrade labeled and unlabelled goods. The movement focuses in particular on exports from developing countries to developed countries."

Fair trade proponents do not oppose free trade: most in fact embrace the concept but believe some of the current market failures must be addressed via a well-established system of minimum prices and producer support mechanisms.

I could understand a misunderstanding with the trade justice movement. After all both are closely linked: the trade justice movement demands the end of unfair trade barriers and subsidies (i.e. cotton subsidies in the US) set up by governments in the North. See http://www.maketradefair.com/en/index.htm for more info.

I'm going to change the reference to fair trade to protectionism, a concept which I think is closer to the contrast the previous author wanted to highlight on the free trade page.Vincentl 02:56, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Fair trade is something you anarcho-capitalists should embrace. And embrace it quickly. If not, you will soon see harsh protectionist measures and socialism. An aweful backlash on current trade policies has gained more momentum then the anarcho-capitalists can handle. The pendulum swings.68.106.248.211 (talk) 06:56, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

On Marx

The current statement that Marx opposed free trade is not true.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/01/09ft.htm#marx

Marx supported free trade because it would, in his view, further depress wages, destroy nationalism, and bring about the revolution that he thought would occur. He felt that free trade would create a rising up of the proletariat.

However, he also did not favor protectionism, because he was opposed to the "free trade within a nation" that a PROTECTED free market establishes (which is of course what the United States was when he was writing; a free market economy with tariffs to protect the system from external interferences)

I'd like to hear some thoughts before editing this section, but please review the speech he gave in Brussels in 1848 linked above.

I read it. In summary Marx actually believes in free-trade, for the very same reason Libertarians believe in free trade. He also believes it destroys national identity and promotes class antagonisms, and "for this reason alone I am for free trade," says Marx. It should also be noted that Marx and Engels ran a cotton mill in Manchester England, and Marx was a cheerleader for the south during the American Civil War. Marx and Engels lost money as Union Republican Armies marched through the south, cutting cotton imports to England, creating a scare in cotton stocks.68.106.248.211 (talk) 07:06, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

This article needs some work

It seems the ideologues really got to this thing and had their way. Free-trade is an economic concept and is fairly well understood by the economic profession. It seems the article is mostly about politics and not about economics. A good place to start is with The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. Hopefully that will put you guys on the right track. --Jayson Virissimo 19:29, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Yup. "Free Trade" has become a political cliche. An article on "Tarrif" would be more accurate and nonbiased.68.106.248.211 19:48, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Not to stick my head in the oven, but this entire article seems to have originally been written by free trade advocates that were trying to use econo-talk to biasedly promote it. Then got hacked away by anti-free traders, then the econo's sited refferences from other econo's. Why not let McDonalds and Burger King write the definitions of "hamburger" and "fast-food" or Pope John Paul write about the crucifixion. Wiki is supposed to be a moderate explanation of a topic (isn't it?). It's one thing for someone to mention the debate, it's another for an economist to write words not far from 'some people don't think free trade is going to solve all the worlds problems, but their not economists now are they?"

To mention a dispute outside of its article, someone had said something to the extent of "Most economists agree on free trade" and then someone asked for a refference to prove that most do. Thats completely beside the point. You may as well ask the Bush administration how the war on terror is going. The majority of religious leaders will tell you 'Christ is King!' but that doesn't mean you can rely on them for a realistic opinion.

As a free trade critic, I would love to fill this article with every refference from anti-FT's that I could find, complete with links and PHD's. They would be real people with real educations and I could probably even find some that weren't being bribed at the time. But that would be propaganda and not reality, although I wouldn't expect an economist to understand the difference between what they say and what they live in.

To redeem myself for using wiki to bash economists (at least i didn't edit) I propose to limit this article to quantifiable paramiters i.e. focus on definition and usage through history. Mention that pre 1920's America was a protectivist nation and now they're FT. Don't say "American's used to think free trade was unamerican" because thats just propaganda from a different centrury.

It used to be more profitable for the US to be protectivist and now its more profitable to be FT, at least to the people that count the money. That was the old product they were selling, this is the new one.

BlindfoldedNinja Nov 29 2007

idealised market

What is an idealized market? Intangible 02:05, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Conservative Opposition to Free Trade (US view)

The JBS is not opposed to free trade per se, they are opposed to managed trade institutes like the WTO, which they believe infringe upon U.S. sovereignty. Being against managed trade institutes is not the same as being against free trade. Josh 02:56, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Josh,

ALL free trade agreements will include managed trade institutes (world government) because, as defined by free trade theorist Von Mises in Human Action, the free market economy is only established when a single, coersive government is established over the entire free market area. (for the "cliff's notes", check out Percy Greaves' glossary to Human Action at www.mises.org and look for the four part definition of a free market economy.

As such, if JBS or any other group are opposed to managed trade institutions, they are against free trade. Free trade is the economic means to achieve an interdependent world (Bastiat in his letters to Cobden really goes into this a lot; saying he desired free trade to establish the "single, ecumenical, indissolubule union of the peoples of the world"). Protectionism, of course, was established for the exact opposite political purpose, to prevent the merging of nations into a single system. - Kanzai

Kanzai is mistaken when he writes, "as defined by free trade theorist Von Mises in Human Action, the free market economy is only established when a single, coersive government is established over the entire free market area." Free trade is trade without any government or coercive intervention. He also seems to misunderstand what is meant by "managed trade organizations." These are cartels of governments interfering in free trade, and thus incompatable with free trade. If a state wants free trade, it needs no agreements - it simply repeals all laws creating barriers to trade, i.e. all subsidies, quotas, tariffs, etc. This can be done unilaterally, and requires no pacts or agreements with other states. "Free trade agreements" are shams; they are actually mutual protectionist agreements between state rulers. PhilLiberty 08:00, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

PhilLiberty et. al,

Please review Human Action by Von Mises and you'll see clearly that a single coersive government is required for a market economic system. Von Mises was perhaps the most strident and respected defender of free trade, and his work is foundational on this topic in our modern, global economic system.

Phil, from where I'm sitting, your statements about the free trade agreements (which destroy tariffs) being "shams" show an anarchist bias on your part. Save that sort of thing for a blog, not an encyclopedia. Trade agreements that reduce or eliminate barriers to trade are called free trade agreements. You do not have the right to redefine terms to fit your agenda.

Here's the link to review the simple definition of a free market economy.

[6] —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kanzei (talk • contribs) 03:15, August 20, 2007 (UTC).

Mises (or rather, his interpreter) is not talking about policy in the passage you cite. He is discussing a theoretical model ("an imaginary construction"). Furthermore, he uses "government" in the Jeffersonian/Nockian sense to mean organized defense of rights, and not to mean state. IOW in his model he assumes that there exists some arrangement for protecting property rights - a purely defensive function. "Coercion" should not be confused with "aggression." It means retaliatory force (e.g. against thieves) in this context. Bottom line: You are totally misunderstanding Mises if you think he supported world government (a world state), or thought that it was a requirement for international free trade. Perhaps you should read some writings of his student, Murray Rothbard, to get a more explict idea of the anti-statism inherent in Austrian economics.

Regarding free trade agreements and managed trade cartels of states - you seem to think that quid pro quo agreements on what quotas, tariffs, and barriers to allow are examples of free trade. In fact, these agreements maintain and legitimize abrogations of free trade - rulers agreeing on sustainable plunder rates. As already noted, free trade doesn't require such collusion - it could be done unilaterally. PhilLiberty 15:30, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Phil,

Again, your anti-statism/anarchist bias is clouding your objectivity. You have no basis to suggest that Austrians are anarchists or anti-statists. I'm particularly interested in your assertion that Jefferson, a President of the United States who became quite the Federalist during his term of office as he describes in his letters to Adams, would somehow be included in an anti-state understanding of government. Your argument is truly bizarre.

From Percy Greaves, whose glossary to Human Action I will again refer; the definition of a government for Von Mises (and thus Austrian Economics): Government. The social apparatus established for the monopolistic exercise of the compulsion and coercion which, because of man's imperfection, is necessary for the prevention of actions detrimental to the peaceful inter-human cooperation of a definite system of social organization. Because men are not faultless, government (the police power) is an indispensable and beneficial institution, as without it no lasting social cooperation or civilization could be developed or preserved. A durable system of government must rest on the might of an ideology acknowledged by the majority. The concept of a perfect system of government is both fallacious and self-contradictory, since this institution of men is based on the very imperfection of men. From the liberal (q.v.) viewpoint, the task of government consists solely and exclusively in guaranteeing the protection of life, health, liberty and private property against violent attacks. As far as the government confines the exercise of its violence to the suppression and prevention of antisocial actions, there prevails what reasonably and meaningfully can be called liberty. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kanzei (talk • contribs).

The Republican Party was founded by hard core protectionists. If something isn't done soon, that conservative party will fracture again, and probably not recover. Too bad, the Republican Party had a good run. Oh and Duncan Hunter 2008 hahaha 68.106.248.211 13:29, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

September 2007, by a 2:1 margin likely Republican primary voters no longer believe in the religion of free trade. http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/WSJ-POLL-20071003.pdf 68.106.248.211 (talk) 11:06, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

"Alternatives to free trade."

I see protectionism, balanced trade, and a whole bunch of alternatives in the "Alternatives to free trade" section. I don't see "Import Maximization".

All free-trade/anarcho-capitalist/libertarian literature I have ever read wants to maximize imports and minimize exports. In their mind a perfect country would export nothing and import everything, the citizens of this ideal country would enjoy the fruits of others' labor while sitting back and drinking fine tea. This should be advertised as the secret agenda of the free-traders so potential voters can recoil in horror, and laugh at their galactic stupidity.68.106.248.211 (talk) 10:43, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

68.106.248.211 Needs to take an economic course or just needs to attempt to rub both brain cells together and spark an intelligent thought before typing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.133.129.54 (talk) 21:43, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

 You free-traitors are responsible for the 6 trillion dollar trade deficit.  I hope your proud of the economic destruction of the United States.68.106.248.15 (talk) 06:42, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

This section requires more distinction between the alternative methods and Free Trade. Specifically, it needs to say, for each alternative method, what exactly the difference is between that method and Free Trade, and who is for or against it for what reasons. Otherwise it is irrelevant. Rudy Breteler (talk) 22:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

NAFTA and other edits

1. Editorial comment. Nabauma writes "Many American workers and unions oppose free trade because they believe it forces them to compete with low-paid workers in less developed parts of the world who earn as much in a day as union workers earn in an hour. In those countries, worker safety and environmental regulations are not enforced or nonexistent. Even economists and corporate managers who supported NAFTA now admit that it will produce losers as well as winners, and cost Americans high-wage jobs." No quotes, his opinion. If this is not an editorial comment, I don't know what is one. 2. NAFTA We can go on and one with arguments in favour of NAFTA and against NAFTA. This is not the place for such discussion. Please take it to the NAFTA page. This article is about the economic theory of Free Trade. Bakersville (talk) 15:34, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

As I said in the comment, the quotes above are summaries of the attributed statements from the WSJ, Rick MacArthur, and Business Week. The quotes are all below in the subsection.

If you are going to delete opinion that is not attributed, then I'll apply your own standard and delete all the opinion in this article which is not attributed -- since that's a violation of WP:NPOV and WP:RS anyway.

The subject of this article is "Free trade". If you want to write about "The economic theory of free trade," then rename the article or write a new one.

I'm going to put the MacArthur quotes back, and if you delete it again, I'm going to take it to arbitration. This is WP:CENSOR. You're deleting objections to free trade because you don't agree with them. This is a POV article. I'm willing to let you get away with that -- even though it violates WP rules -- but you have to follow WP rules and include other viewpoints in the article, when they are as significant as the author of a major book who has been interviewed repeatedly and reviewed by major media. Nbauman (talk) 16:43, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

China

I don't know whether we want it added to this page, but China has just signed its first ever free trade agreement with a developed country, namely New Zealand. It's received wide coverage in the international media, being referred to as a "historic first" [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15]... Aridd (talk) 08:20, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Britain

Free trade was used by Peel and helped the British Empire become powerful, but was also one of the reasons Britains power declined under Disraeli in the 1870's could something like that be put in the historical bit? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.152.228.190 (talk) 18:34, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the history bit is lacking a lot of information. There's just general stuff and then history in the US. A paragraph about Britain is needed.--86.198.56.115 (talk) 14:45, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

What about agricultural policy and agricultural subsidies?

For latin american and african countries, this is the biggest issue in the free trade.

I barely see the word agricultural.

The topic 'agricultural subsidies' is included as an issue in the topic fair trade.

But even in that topic, the fact that agricultural subsidies create an unfair competition is not mentioned.

I hope you like my contributions PedroPerez 06:46, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Agriculture subsidies belong in either the 'Protectionist' wiki article or the 'Corrupt politicians' wiki article.98.165.6.225 (talk) 09:32, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Establish auto-archive

I am being bold and establishing an auto-archiver here as the page is getting long. Objections/comments can be registered here.--Gregalton (talk) 12:11, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Environment

This article needs an independent section on how free trade mitigates environmental standards by outsourcing business to countries with less harsh laws. A similar section could be made on human rights (ie, child labor, etc) or could be incorporated into the same section.

--

While this is true there have been posative outcomes for human rights as well and the enviroment due to free trade.

Again this is not to say that free trade does not cause negative impacts on human rights and the enviroment but one should look at examples of how free trade has encouraged the protection of humand rights and the enviroment.

Digmores (talk) 05:25, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Peloponnesian War?

It says in the historical section that the Peloponnesian war was fought for free trade. Now that's not quite true. It was against Athens's general domination, trade being just one aspect of it. --86.198.56.115 (talk) 14:50, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Obviously trade causes wars. Not just "free" trade, but trade in general, free or taxed.98.165.6.225 (talk) 00:28, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

-- Yeah right, trade causes wars. But not in Peloponnesian war.. It is more of historical aspect than economical... Priosvoletia (talk) 12:46, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Free trade is a far more important core term than international trade

International trade is about all types of trade between countries. Free trade is about allowing buyers and sellers to negotiate without government interference in the price arrived at. To combine articles so that free trade is nothing but a sub-part of international trade would be a huge disservice to people studying economics using wikipedia articles, because free trade is a much bigger and more focused term within the field. (field of what? Rusl)

Combining them the other way does not make much sense, either. Having an article about free trade with a big section about international trade in general would be nonsensical because international trade includes such ideas as protectionism, government regulation and reporting, economic forecasting, ambassadorship, and all kinds of other regulations that are not mere opposites of free trade. Here are some (editable) suggestions about what makes up each topic:

Some ideas do belong in both articles, such as protectionism, anti-protectionism, free market price, tariffs, treaties, and free-trade alliances. The way I suggest that is handled is as in any other encyclopedic article, by focusing each article, and mentioning the ideas only the level necessary for that topic (referring the articles to each other where necessary). Other ideas, such as some mentioned above, belong more fittingly in only one of the two articles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.162.103.106 (talk • contribs) 09:20, 21 May 2006

I second the above. --Northmeister 17:43, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm Tamfang and I approve this message. —Tamfang 17:43, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. Free trade assumes perfect markets, perfect competition, perfect information which does not exist. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.133.206.190 (talk) 16:14, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

You can't separate international trade with interstate trade, except to say that the US Constitution's sleeping commerce clause mandates interstate free trade. This sounds like an attempt by free traders, anarcho-capitalists and Libertarians to propagandize their disgusting ideology.98.165.6.225 (talk) 13:21, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

The two above comments seem to not be so much opinions about the solution proposed. Regardless of opinions of free trade, the above solution seems to be a logical one.71.196.136.67 (talk) 23:50, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

How far would one go?

How far would one go to define something as a barrier against free trade? I am thinking about non-tariff regulations. Inside the EU many argue that any concern for the environment can be considered as trade barrier and thus should have lower priority than (free) trade. Does this imply that free trade means trade without responsibility or trade with freedom from responsibility?

The discussion of supply demand price curves does not add up if one consider a concientiuos (how do I spell that?) consumer that are willing to look not only on the price tag but also look for added values such as a fair trade label and/or a ecolabel, does it? In this context the added value does not necessarily lie in the quality of the commodity.

If free trade means freedom from responsibility (of the trader) I can not see why any democratic state would want to promote free trade. After all, that would imply the abandonment of human rights etc etc.

It is stated that isolationism will lead to lower rate of economic growth. You forgot lack of competition. I know no reason why anyone would doubt that but please add a reference or at least an example. It would make a stronger point. I think the history of steel industry in the US would be a good example but I am not well versed in the details.

When and if there is race to the bottom it is not caused by the companies that move their business but rather the national legislation that is lowered or already low compared to the "original" country. Or?

//Bedrupsbaneman

There are many cases involving so-called sanitary and phytosanitary regulations that have gone to negotiation and dispute-resolution within the W.T.O. These regulations are said to be "trade-neutral" if they're based upon sound science. How "sound" is defined is often left up to an obscure organization known as the codex alimentarius, headquartered in Rome. Their recommendations have often been used in dispute tribunals at the W.T.O. Sometimes, though, these tribunals are forced to go out on a limb and issue reports on a case-by-case basis. This occurred in the French asbestos case in which a Canadian manufacturer of asbestos argued against the French import ban. The dispute was resolved in Canada's favor, but was overturned on appeal after an E.U.-wide spasm of outrage. So, sound science still has political overtones. Economists in perfectly-competitive models as presented here assume that consumers are sovereign agents. They are only interested in the commodity and its ability to provide utility; they're not interested in that commodity's particular supply chain. I'm not familiar with models that sufficiently relax this assumption. There are many free-traders, like myself, who argue that it's one of greatest liberators of mankind ever witnessed in our shared history. Why? Because it liberates the abjectly poor from the ultimate form of human rights abuse and that is poverty. Look only to China and India today. Since economic reforms began (1978 in China and 1991 in India) hundreds of millions of peasants have been provided opportunities to improve their lot and join the global economy. I don't think the steel industry would be a good example simply because the loss of employment there has been more a consequence of automation than offshoring of production. Indeed, steel output has grown over the last several decades. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.209.131.44 (talk • contribs) 19:20, 20 June 2005

In reference to the concerns at the top of this section...

In order to establish a working definition of a non-tariff barrier, a general way of putting it would be a "domestic policy designed to limit foreign activity in the market" Sanitary and environmental laws may make a country less competitive, and make countries less willing to trade with it, but it is not a violation of free trade, so they are not NTB's. NTB's are policies designed to limit a foreign presence in the market, or give domestic companies an edge. Subsidies, such as those given to US agriculture companies, allow them to undercut foreign competition and dominate the US market, are good examples of NTB's.

In reference to the US steel industry...

The protection granted to US steel companies has served its purpose quite well: it has insulated the US steel industry from foreign competition. The issue is that were companies that buy steel are denied the cheaper foreign steel and must pay the higher price of domestic steel, thus hindering their growth and profits. I'm not trying to turn this into a debate, but US steel isn't a good example of why protectionism is good.71.196.136.67 (talk) 23:51, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Tariff Graph

I do not know enough about the graphing engine to fix this myself, but someone please correct the tariff graph. The triangle to the left of government revenue is a transfer payment from consumers to producers of product inputs (they are part of the producer's costs), not deadweight loss. If you'd like a slightly fuller explanation as to why this is so, please see my lecture notes. [16]

David Youngberg (talk) 02:28, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

I see your point, that triangle represents increased producers costs, but it still signifies welfare loss as well. I don't think it's correct to call it a transfer payment. If demand were completely inelastic, the deadweight loss triangle on the right would have zero area. In this case, does the tariff still generate inefficiency? Yes. The most easy way to see this is because we are switching some production from the most efficient source (foreign) to comparatively inefficient domestic sources.

Example. If (1) it cost $1,000 (and 100 hours of labor) to produce a hat in the U.S (2) it cost $1 (and 30 minutes of labor) to produce the same hat in China (3) One and only one person in the U.S. wants to purchase exactly one hat (completely inelastic demand) and (4) the U.S. imposes a $1,000 tariff on Chinese hats, switching production of this one hat from China to the U.S., collecting 0 tax revenue. The deadweight loss triangle on the right has zero area, but does this tariff create inefficiency? Yes. This loss is represented by the triangle on the left. Mgunn (talk) 01:12, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Effects on wages

The President's Economic Report to Congress, a publication of the President's Council of Economic Advisors, reports that in 1971 (the year generally considered the beginning of the "free trade" era in the United States) the average weekly wage was $133.58. There were 75,972,000 workers and a United States population of 207,661,000. GDP in 1971 was $1.1271 trillion. Using these figures, in 1971 36.6% of Americans worked and they earned 46.8% of what they produced. These figures are provided in 2006 dollars.

By 2006, 47.4% of Americans were working, and bringing home only 31.3% of what they produced.

In economic theory, workers suffer the disutility of labor in order to obtain the necessaries of life. In the free trade era, in the United States, more people earning a smaller portion of their production are required to work in order to supply the aggregate with the necessaries of life.

A lurking variable the above fails to address is the fact that although a smaller portion of what was produced was kept, it could be possible that they produced more overall, and their standards of living could have still increased. Comparative Advantage states that when countries freely trade, they specialize to become more efficient and gain advantage. (Not arguing with the point, just saying that this is something to take into account.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.196.136.67 (talk) 23:41, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Where's the consumer price deflation? Free Trade does not lower the price of consumer goods made in cheap foreign labor countries. In fact we've had nothing but consumer price inflation.98.165.6.225 (talk) 22:52, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

model / regime / condition / theory / system ?

Right up top, the first sentence reads, "Free trade is a X in which the trade of goods and services between or within countries flows unhindered by government-imposed restrictions". How do we fill in the X? Here's my argument: Free trade is a condition of the real world--there can be arguments about how precisely the real world matches an ideal definition, but it's used to describe a system which actually exists or a system which could really potentially exist. So

• It's not a model. Models are used to analyze it, but "free trade" is about something real models are abstract simplifications.
• Likewise, it's not a theory, which is tied tightly to "model".

So, I'd go for something along the lines of regime, condition, system, or ...? Possibly the sentence would be better phased differently along the lines of, "A system of trade is said to be free trade if..."? Cretog8 (talk) 16:59, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Thinking about this is a little more, this is a lot more then difficult then I thought. We have the theory of free trade and then we have the policy idea of free trade. I think the theory is covered rather well in the introduction, so I think system makes the most sense, since you hear system far more in economics then regime or condition. --Patrick (talk) 17:28, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

What's wrong with "model"? Wikipedia has an article on Model (economics), and the literature is filled with references to economic models. Google it and you get tons of references. But I'll grant that some people use the term as if it was an existing system - mistakenly IMO. PhilLiberty (talk) 20:26, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I have nothing against economic models. I think that those who use the term "free trade" as an economic model are the vast minority, even amongst economists. "Free trade" is used to describe regimes (the best word, in my opinion except that it's a bit high-falutin') of actual government policies towards trade. Naturally economists use models to study it. But this article is full of things like, "the colonies which became the United States generally supported free trade". That means they had something practical in mind, they weren't arguing in favor of a model. Cretog8 (talk) 21:27, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I've never heard regime described in the same context as free trade. But I agree that model is not the best word to use since this article discuss free trade policy and theory. --Patrick (talk) 02:21, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Google searches are always suspect as proof, but still [17]. This is using "regime" in the way an economist or political scientist would use it, as "condition"/"set of rules and conditions", things like that. It's a very good word, but probably misleading to many who aren't used to the word being used that way. Cretog8 (talk) 03:59, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm convinced that "model" is not correct, since as Cretog8 points out, this has to do with practice. "System" sounds good to me. As Patrick points out, "regime" is likely to be misunderstood. PhilLiberty (talk) 17:40, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Right on. The article remains a bit scattered, but that helps. Thanks Cretog8 (talk) 18:28, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

WOO-HOO! I love Wikipedia! My check's in the mail! I checked out WP's Free Trade entry after reading a challenging editorial by a University of London Professor of History, Frank Trentmann. I was so happy to see that the "Neutrality of the article" was in dispute. Yeah! I hope the neutrality is always in dispute, haha. And, it's a credit to Wikipedia's brilliance that the discussion has moved to the pro/con entry. Just for the record, I'm in favor of "regime." Hahaha. Countless thanks to all of the Wikipedians who helped make this entry, and this discussion, what it is. Peace. Torchpratt (talk) 14:44, 20 November 2008 (UTC)HI!!!!!!!!!!!! ;P

This whole pedantic discussion on nomenclature (model, regime etc...) is not enlightening. I would argue for, "Free trade is trade in the absence of tariffs, quotas, or other government imposed barriers." Mgunn (talk) 00:42, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

poor article

This is a really poor article. Can someone with a bit of expertise and some time please fix it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.237.131.17 (talk) 06:05, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Atkin paper

A reference to a paper by David Atkin, "Trade, Tastes and Nutrition in India" has been added to the article. This is Atkin's job market paper, but isn't published. Regardless of how much scrutiny it's received, we're not in a good position to give it the OK that a good academic journal can. If it's considered good now, then odds are a version will be published fairly soon, and then it can be referenced. CRETOG8(t/c) 20:55, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Also, the way the reference is added is really awkward. It's been put in the lead, but the lead is supposed to summarize the article. Adding material on recent empirical work on free trade, possibly including this paper, would improve the article. CRETOG8(t/c) 20:58, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

This doesn't matter

I removed this argument which doesn't speak to the central issue of whether third parties (eg., a fledgeling industry) are harmed more than the two individuals who decide to trade are helped: "The theory is that any voluntary trade must benefit both parties, otherwise it would not be made. More precisely, for a trade to occur both parties must expect a benefit (ex ante.)" La la ooh November 2007

I removed this bit "In the 1930s, the US adopted the protectionist Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act which raised rates to all time highs beyond the Lincoln levels, which many economists believe exacerbated the Great Depression. Europe, which had less protectionism at the time, had largely come out of the depression while the US remained mired in the depression. Franklin D. Roosevelt resorted to Hamilton's earlier formula of tariff Reciprocity coupled with subsidy to industry which went unbroken until the 1970s when protectionism was reduced after the Kennedy Round of trade talks in the late sixties."

It is unsourced and very wrong about the historic level of the Hawley-Smoot Tariff. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.118.24.3 (talk) 07:50, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Current status

I started a "current status" section with some maps, but there is still a lot of information missing. For example, what is the average tariff paid on international goods and services? It would be interesting to have this broken down by country or industry. -- Beland (talk) 15:00, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Lower cost to consumer?

Where is the proof that moving factories to a cheap labor country lowers the price for the consumer? Last time I checked, well before oil hyperinflation recently, generally all items have experienced normal (whatever normal is) single digit inflation. Only a few things experienced deflation like computer chips, and computer chips aren't made with cheap foreign slave labor. So where is the proof free traders? Also the crashing dollar isn't exactly great if you are concerned about the "cost to the consumer".98.165.6.225 (talk) 08:57, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Slave labor? Anyway...its cheaper to make a Tshirt in China than in USA. That's what it means by lower cost to consumer. Also, its cheaper to make a Ferrari in Italy than in China. 170.65.188.1 (talk) 04:34, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Bull. T-shirts are more expensive in 2008 then they were in 2000 or 1995 or 1990 or 1985 or 1980. The claim is that T-shirts made in China are cheaper TO THE CONSUMER! Not cheaper TO MAKE so some rich investor who can make more $$$$$$ off of quasi-slave labor. That's how slavery works, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.98.165.6.225 (talk) 20:17, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

There is a major flaw in your assumptions. Nobody said that products do get cheaper and cheaper. What has been said is that prices are cheaper than they WOULD BE if a product - T-shirts for instance- was produced in the US for example. BTW, in 1985, T-shirts were already produced in foreign countries. So if you compare those prices, it is quite obvious that they've increased over the last 20 years as average income has risen as well. If companies would price their products at an inappropriate level, it would be easy for a competitor to increase it's market share by lowering the price. Why is nobody doing it? Because they can't. Prices are NOT artificial high. If you still think they are, why not importing goods from China and sell them for a lower price. You're free to do so... --94.193.120.203 (talk) 21:30, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Slavery is illegal worldwide. The biggest proof of mutual-benefit that free trade brings to rich countries and poor countries is the growth of the rich countries' economies and salaries as well as the growth of the economies and salaries of the countries they trade with. Singapore went from poor to rich, so did Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, etc. while USA, UK, Germany became even richer by trading with these former-poor countries. Some goods are cheaper to make in Germany (rich country) than any other country in the world: Such as very high quality glass(Schott), very good drills (Bosch), and BMWs etc. which were exported to these asian countries and Germany became richer. While the poor countries used german drills and trucks to build factories to produce cheap goods to export to Germany. Mutually benefitial. 202.92.43.51 (talk) 15:01, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Wrong, widgets made in cheap foreign labor countries are not cheaper to the consumer, and I could care less about the welfare of foreign citizens. Why do you concern yourself with the welfare of foreign citizens while ignoring the welfare of your own citizens?98.165.6.225 (talk) 22:42, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Lookup the law of supply and demand. If you shift the supply curve down (eg. due to cheaper inputs such as labor), then price decreases (and quantity increases), unless there is a completely inelastic supply. Mgunn (talk) 00:18, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Look up reality. There has been inflation on everything (except computer hardware produced in the 1st world), there is no price deflation which you free traders claimed would happen. You said there would be cheaper consumer items. There has not been cheaper consumer items. The only thing we got in the US was a shrinking middle class, socialism and inflation.98.165.6.225 (talk) 02:23, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Nobody is going to challenge this? This is 90% of the free trader's argument, "cheaper consumer items." Almost everything has experienced upper single digit inflation since the era of free trade began in the 1970's.98.165.15.98 (talk) 20:53, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Correct definition?

Is the definition in the article correct? It is currently "a system of trade policy that allows traders to act and transact without interference from government", which seems overly libertarian. The definition I have heard instead emphasizes that imported sales and domestic sales are treated the same by the government in a way that preserves the economics (comparative advantage, etc.), not just "without interference". The subtlety arises with proposals like cap-and-trade. —AySz88\^-^ 14:45, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Marx did not oppose free trade

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/free-trade/index.htm

This seems like bad misinformation, since not only did Marx support free trade, socialist tend to support it as well.

http://mailstar.net/classwar.html

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/war/marxism.htm

Marx supported free trade solely on the basis that the increased oppression it creates upon the working class would hasten the social revolution. In other words, Marx felt that since social revolution would be inevitable, the sooner the better. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.196.238.110 (talk) 10:57, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Marx also felt that the protectionists were uneducated ingrates, which is the exact same sentiment displayed by free traders today.98.165.15.98 (talk) 21:41, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Objectivity problems

Does anyone else besides me think that this article is biased in favor of a particular formulation of free trade, and that editors are deleting everything that tries to present dissenting viewpoints?

I think for example Paul Samuelson is a competent economist, and his views on free trade belong in an encyclopedia that purports to give all notable viewpoints. Nbauman (talk) 23:56, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree 100%. Most of the wiki editors are hardcore conservatives (especially those edit the pages related to economics or business). Further, they belive that theirs is the "objective" view point. Dr.P.Madhu (talk) 09:41, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I have not been following this that closely. What Samuelson viewpoint are you referring to?

On the opponents/defenders of free trade: I think it is clear that "opponents" of free trade often advocate for protection of specific industries, and I'm not clear what your objection to this is. Best,--Gregalton (talk) 08:12, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

You need better glasses if it is "pretty clear to you" that protectionists propose protection of specific targeted industries. Exploitation of cheap foreign labor (slavery) knows no particular sector of the economy.68.106.248.15 (talk) 06:46, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

An encyclopedia entry should give all of the arguments in favor of free trade by notable economists, and all of the arguments against free trade by notable economists. This entry claims as a fact that there is an overwhelming consensus among economists that the gains of the winners always outweigh the losses of the losers, and that it is a fact. There is not an overwhelming consensus, and it is an opinion, not a fact. Paul Samuelson, for example, disagrees. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/09/business/worldbusiness/09outsource.html Joseph Stiglitz also disagrees. This article ignores those notable dissenting opinions.

My specific problem with the article now is the section entitled "Opponents of free trade." This section violates Wikipedia rules in many ways. It sets up a straw man of "domestic industries" that oppose free trade, without actually naming specific industries or individuals, and without giving any of their actual arguments. Their supporting evidence is general economic textbooks, which simply assert generic arguments. Since Alan Blinder's textbook was published, Blinder has admitted, in the Wall Street Journal, that he was wrong about the harmful effect on jobs.

The section says, "Economics says that consumers would necessarily gain more than producers would lose." This is POV and wrong -- "economics" doesn't say that. That's the writers' opinion.

Specifically, free trade advocates in the U.S. have claimed that free trade would create more jobs than it would cost. If you look at the facts as documented by Rick MacArthur for example, this has turned out to be untrue -- as people like Blinder have since admitted.

I keep trying to include these facts, and Bakersville keeps deleting them. He doesn't meaningfully discuss it in Talk, he doesn't give his objections in Talk, he doesn't respond to my questions in Talk, and he doesn't try to reach consensus in Talk. Instead, he inserts his personal opinions in the entry, as if they were fact.

I think Paul Samuelson understands economics at least as well as Bakersville, and I don't think Bakersville should brush aside the opponents of free trade as self-interested "domestic industries".

Bakersville wants to have an entry which discusses only the theory of free trade, without any facts, even when the facts contradict his theory. I think we should have an entry that discusses the theory and also the facts, to see whether the facts agree with his theory.

Bakersville wants to have an entry which discusses only one perspective on the theory of free trade. I think that, under WP:WEIGHT, we should have other perspectives, including Nobel laureates who disagree with Bakersville. Nbauman (talk) 19:41, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I have no problems with including relevant and sourced quotes from Samuelson or Stiglitz in the opposition paragraph. My issues with your edits were: 1) Your criticism of NAFTA that belongs in NAFTA if it does in any place 2) Your change of a title to a new one that didn't reflect the content of the paragraph. Best. Bakersville (talk) 21:52, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Why does my quote from Rick MacArthur belong in NAFTA and not in Free Trade? A quote can be relevant to the subject of more than one article. The proponents of free trade claimed that free trade would not reduce jobs. The facts are that free trade reduced jobs. The facts contradict the theory of free trade. Why do you object to refering to the facts that challenge this theory of free trade in the article about free trade? Nbauman (talk) 22:32, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Bakersville, for the record, you have no response to my argument in the paragraph above, is that correct? Nbauman (talk) 01:44, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

1. Discussing the effects of free trade in employment is like discussing the effects of technology in employment. Pretty much irrelevant. The theory is based on the issue of comparative advantages not on full employment. 2. NAFTA is a trade treaty between to countries; it does not establish free trade in the US or in Mexico. Bakersville (talk) 12:58, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Any movement towards lowering of trade barriers and/or lowering of duties is a move towards free-trade. NAFTA does exactly that, and you cannot disown NAFTA because it has been an economic disaster. Man up and take the blame.98.165.6.225 (talk) 17:29, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Bakersville, I assume you agree that many stories in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times quote economic experts who say that one of the negative effects of free trade is on employment.

You don't challenge or disagree with that, do you? Nbauman (talk) 19:12, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Free trade may have positive or negative impact in employment. The problem is that if you bring a particular example in a particular industry in a particular country, you can pretty much prove any point. If free trade is established in a previously protected industry, jobs will be lost in that industry in that country, nobody will negate that. But new jobs will be open in another industry with comparative advantages, and output will increase benefiting the economy. Obviously in real life if I loose my job I would be pretty pissed off, but that is beside the point. Bakersville (talk) 03:00, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

OH God he said "Comparative Advantage". That has got to be the dumbest economic theory I have ever heard. Who are YOU to say that if jobs are lost in one industry that by the powers of the Yin-Yang, a job will magically open up in another industry? This is beyond absurd, its mysticism.98.165.6.225 (talk) 17:33, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Regardless of your opinion on the theory of comparative advantage (which you misrepresented/straw manned, so I'm not sure if you understand the concept in the first place), it is the most accepted argument for free trade by economists. Economists, as you should understand, know the economy far more than both you and I. It definitely deserves a good part in the article, and if you can find a few credible economists that dismiss the theory of comparative advantage (read: economists, not journalists; journalists' opinions are as meager as ours), then by Wikipedia's policy of NPOV, I say that what those economists say is more than accepted. --68.239.234.57 (talk) 19:31, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

You say,

If free trade is established in a previously protected industry, jobs will be lost in that industry in that country ... But new jobs will be open in another industry with comparative advantages, and output will increase benefiting the economy.

Some economists, including Samuelson, believe that the new jobs will pay much less than the old, and that the final result will be more poverty and greater unemployment. Do you acknowledge that possiblility? Nbauman (talk) 17:33, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

That's irrelevant. A job don't magically become available when it is lost somewhere else. Although I agree with you.98.165.15.98 (talk) 20:45, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Personaly -full disclosure- I think that the argument doesn't hold. New goods would probably be cheaper and more abundant, and resources allocated to other industries. In any case, Samuelson point of view is in the article, and so is Blinder's. So what's your point? Bakersville (talk) 18:27, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually everything has experienced inflation, sometimes more (housing), sometimes less (cars), sometimes absurd (oil). The only thing which has been produced CHEAPER since the era of suicidal free trade has been microchips, and those are invented and built in the good old USA or other 1st world countries. And now you free traitors want to outsource chip manufacturing to China. You slave-driving jerks.98.165.6.225 (talk) 13:38, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

…I think Free Trade in an Executive Postion is "Time Consuming" just like if i set a price for my Puzzels at the Swap Meat Market somewhere in the United States, that i could actually invest my time to see what a value i will get in different erea's or just see what the hole picture is about my value of that set price. I had got this recomendation towards the investment of a Paregraph here in this column;as when a trade is worth a value,as something of Purchase and not just a trade without the value of Money and or Currency. It is a true meaning that Money is a form of Trade and without it ,a formational System just will not work. Formational meaning that Money and or a Form of Currency exsists in that System. Though i do beleave that if a value of something is in the same representation of another then that Currency is of same or value,and now has to have a value upon it's value to become an ongoing Trade. In exsistance Trade comes before anything else;we traded ower ideas and came up with a new one wich then could be an invention. Nothing is Capitalised as a trade,for i will invest my fortune in this venture insured that it will become of something,though in reality the venture is a sure progress,and now leaves Nothing to a positive, invention and investment almost have the same carrectors and could be a considered trade. Trade now is a diversity it exsists in the oportunity of investment and the combining of an idea.3:48 P.M. E.S.T.David George DeLancey (talk) 20:48, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

This is a general response to many of the above comments/replies, so forgive me if I am addressing problems that have since been solved. First of all, I will fully disclose my free trade sentiments--I am an advocate of free trade in its purest form--but I will try to remain objective. Secondly, the reference to Comparative Advantage as "mysticism" is more of an admittance of ignorance about the theory itself than an opinion of actual strengths and weaknesses of the concept. It is an oversimplification (straw-man is the hackneyed term). Thirdly, the reference to Samuelson's theory that jobs that replace the outsourced jobs pay lower wages, but that is not true in the slightest. In fact, just the opposite occurs. I'm old school, and prefer the classical economists, such as Adam Smith. In The Wealth of Nations he demonstrates that the quality of wages is determined not by the particular job or the wealth of the country, but by the rate of growth in the industry. The faster an industry grows, the better it pays, because it is competing for more labor as it expands. If uncompetitive industries are allowed to die, others will be more competitive, and grow, thus paying better wages. Of course, this is open to the argument that the surplus of labor from the now-dead industry makes the laborers compete for the jobs, driving wages down. This does not hold up either, simply because that countries more open to free trade generally go through periods of growth, increasing wages.71.196.136.67 (talk) 00:15, 22 March 2009 (UTC) i wouldnt call comparative advantage "mysticism" but i do agree their are many fallacies in the theory. and to say you cant find economists who dismiss free trade means you simply havent read the opposing views. wikipedia is about nuetrality so if you are truly interested in keeping the integrity of this article you should read others views instead of making up straw man arguments that make detractors look moronic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.71.236.124 (talk) 04:52, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Claiming a job will magically open up in one area if a job is destroyed in another is not reality. It sounds more like the Conservation of Energy, a concept in physics. Maybe economists should stick to economics, and physicists stick to physics. A person who loses his/her job will "look" for another job or else that person will starve, not cause a job magically opens up somewhere else.98.165.6.225 (talk) 02:18, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

A clarification

"The 19th century anti-patent cause failed largely because the recession of 1874 discredited the free trade movement"

Should this be taken out? I don't think this gives a NPOV because free trade is hardly "discredited", it's well accepted among many economists. It might be possible this person is confusing free trade with classical or laissez faire economics, but that's not the same as free trade.--User:Damnedkingdom

But was it discredited at the time? That's what the article suggests. Evercat 20:48 27 May 2003 (UTC)

To be honest I can't tell if it's meant in the temporary or permanent sense. --Damnedkingdom

I've been bold and clarified it. :-) Evercat 20:57 27 May 2003 (UTC)

Yeah, I think that is correct. The impression I got from Machlup & Penroses' article is that, during the 1870s, free trade advocates who had previously held positions of influence were discredited in much the same way that investment bankers were discredited in the 1930s. One can have a POV argument about whether this was deserved :)

Oh, btw, I'm not sure if it's completely correct to place anti-WTO protestors at the opposite end of a "free trade" dichotomy. Most of these protests are not anti "globalisation" --- some of them are anti capitalist, some of them argue for "fair trade" (I'm not sure if those overlap :).

As the IP section of the article explains, the WTO is about enforcing all sorts of rules which are not necessarily about freeing up trade. Many critics of the contemporary "free trade" movement emphasise that despite the Uruguay round, Europe and the US still have closed agricultural markets. Thus "fair trade" is not necessarily very different from (Platonic) free trade -- Pde 23:46 27 May 2003 (UTC)

Good job Evercat I like the change. --Damnedkingdom

"History" section unsourced, biased

Many items such as bananas, pineapples, melons, corn, and tomatoes exported to Australia, are laced with over 3000 times the permitted level of pesticides, herbicides and chemicals. Such items are being rejected by the public in Australia. What's more the locally grown Bananas and pineapples are unable to compete in the sales prices from imported stocks (R Sperring) [Material moves to RFC below...]

Free Trade or Trader Freedom?

Free trade is an ideology propagated by traders justifying trader freedom.Dr.P.Madhu (talk) 01:32, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Within the ideology of free-trade alias trader freedom, the trader freedom is the foremost 'freedom' to be imposed on the world. Dr.P.Madhu (talk) 01:36, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

What are you talking about? Why should a liberty - the ability of consenting adults to make commercial agreements between each other - be an imposition? bobrayner (talk) 01:48, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

What he's getting at is that there is a group who has the ability to produce goods and/or trade them across international distances: traders. Free trade is directly beneficial to the traders and allows them to both maximize profits and avoid liabilities. Everyone else who does not have the means to be a trader benefits a) only tangential by having a wider or less expensive array of goods available or b) not at all, as the traders use their profit-maximizing/liability-limiting abilities to exploit them or their country. For the second group of people, free trade can be viewed is an imposition forced upon them which makes them poorer by allowing a larger number of entities to exploit them most efficiently. When you ask how a libierty could possibly be an imposition, you're looking from the perspective of a traders, not from the perspective of those who become exploited. Nailedtooth (talk) 15:48, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

You seem to focus on the availability of goods to these "non-traders", which rather overlooks other things facilitated by trade, such as services, technology, and the availability of jobs. Free trade doesn't just give me interesting cheap groveries, it also enables my employer to sell my skills where they're most needed, which further benefits my pocket. The picture of traders versus nontraders is an over simplification - or a false dichotomy - too.

But even if there are people unable to participate in trade - could you identify some people who are unable to buy or sell goods or services? - how are they "exploited" by others who do trade? This must be some new meaning of the word "exploitation" of which I was previously unaware.bobrayner (talk) 16:39, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

You've missed the point. The benefits to those who are not traders are only tangential; if you cannot engage in international trade yourself, your benefits are only a result of disproportionately larger benefits to those who can trade internationally (in your example, your employer). This, even though you benefit, is exploitative since you do not receive a proportional share of your effort. In other places, the mobility of production has allowed those who can trade internationally to engage in blatantly exploitative practices and/or escape liability for the results of those practices.

For all the good that free trades does it does have drawbacks. For those people whom the drawbacks hurt free trade is an unwelcome imposition that directly harms them and which is imposed upon them against thier will. That is what Madhu was saying. Nailedtooth (talk) 19:43, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Is free trade more than trader freedom- more discussions should be there. Dr.P.Madhu (talk) 01:25, 30 September 2010 (UTC)