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Today's Free Trade is not about the Free Market
JEFFHEAD.COM ^ | 08/01/2003 | Jeff Head

Posted on 08/01/2003 2:05:33 PM PDT by Jeff Head

TODAY'S FREE TRADE IS NOT ABOUT THE FREE MARKET

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other."- John Adams, Oct. 11, 1798
It is that underlying moral foundation coupled woth our liberty that made the Free Market in America the envy of the world, just like those same issues made our governmental form the envy of the world.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

August 1, 2003
Emmett, Idaho


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: foreignmfg; freetrade; geopoliticalrisk; landgrab; outsourcing; peterprinciple; soveriegnty
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To: Cacophonous
I do hope you didn't take that seriously.

Why wouldn't I?

141 posted on 08/01/2003 3:57:50 PM PDT by Texas_Dawg ("...They came to hate their party and this president... They have finished by hating their country.")
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To: editor-surveyor
You know, it's beyond naivety, and it's beyond a mere inability to study history. The Cult of the Free Traders is not stupid, and they don't lack the ability to comprehend. I can only conclude that they are willfully advocating a path that will destroy the US. What their endgame is, I don't know. But no other conclusion makes sense.
142 posted on 08/01/2003 3:58:15 PM PDT by Cacophonous
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To: meadsjn
almost exclusively, the posters here are conservative and republican

From what I've seen there are many here who are Republicans and many here who are not, including some who are right in line with the AFL-CIO on economic issues.

143 posted on 08/01/2003 3:59:06 PM PDT by Texas_Dawg ("...They came to hate their party and this president... They have finished by hating their country.")
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To: Texas_Dawg
Well, I thought you were smarter than that. Was I wrong?
144 posted on 08/01/2003 3:59:16 PM PDT by Cacophonous
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To: meadsjn
It appears that this train has already left the tracks and won't stop until it hits the bottom of the gorge.

My friend, I pray that is not the case and that there is enough good sense and virtue left to avoid it.

145 posted on 08/01/2003 3:59:22 PM PDT by Jeff Head
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To: Cacophonous
Well, I thought you were smarter than that.

That doesn't really answer my question. Can you show me where the poster was implying his answer was a joke?

146 posted on 08/01/2003 4:00:57 PM PDT by Texas_Dawg ("...They came to hate their party and this president... They have finished by hating their country.")
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To: Texas_Dawg

Let me guess, you will use that quote in your little anti Paleo-Con quote list, in a game of gotya that high schoolers resort to. As for Tariffs, ye sthey will work, and higher level of trade resitictions will force China to float the Yuan like it forced the Japanese to float the Yen in the 80s when the Reagan admin was sucesssful in getting the dollar knocked doan against the Yen by more than 50%.

The neo-cons who hero worship Reagan forget that the currency agreements that the US had with other industrialised nations that devalued the Dollar 50% against the Yen and 35% against the Mark were de-facto tariffs, and the dollar devaluation helped give US industry time to recove untill Rubin put the strong dollar policy back in place in late 94.
147 posted on 08/01/2003 4:01:36 PM PDT by JNB
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To: Jeff Head
It appears that this train has already left the tracks and won't stop until it hits the bottom of the gorge.

Oh, the horror! The doom and gloom and melodrama here is just hilarious. Reminds me of the Dems.

148 posted on 08/01/2003 4:02:19 PM PDT by Texas_Dawg ("...They came to hate their party and this president... They have finished by hating their country.")
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To: Texas_Dawg
I didn't take the answer seriously because I didn't take the question seriously. You know, ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.

Perhaps a little elucidation on your part, as to why you were asking the question in the first place, would have helped.

149 posted on 08/01/2003 4:03:33 PM PDT by Cacophonous
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To: JNB
As for Tariffs, ye sthey will work, and higher level of trade resitictions will force China to float the Yuan like it forced the Japanese to float the Yen in the 80s when the Reagan admin was sucesssful in getting the dollar knocked doan against the Yen by more than 50%.

Gosh, that's odd...

Reagan didn't enact any trade restrictions on the Japanese. Hell, folks like you were complaining that he was giving the store away.

150 posted on 08/01/2003 4:04:10 PM PDT by Poohbah (Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women.)
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To: Texas_Dawg
Maybe our citizens need to quit blaming politicians for all their problems and work a little harder if they aren't happy with their economic situation.
Actually, there is a certain amount of truth to Jeff Head's point here.

If it is wrong (and illegal by federal law) for a company to exploit your next door neighbor and pay him less than the federal minimum wage, then it should be just as wrong to exploit the yellow people in China and the brown people in India.

If the EPA won't allow a company to build a factory to make widgets because it will pollute our air (or they want to add billions of dollars to the cost of the factory to keep the air clean), then why is it right to buy cheap widgets from China and India and turn their air brown and poison their rivers?

If the playing field isn't level, if the people aren't equally free and equally protected, then trade isn't fair.

We pay them so little for their work that they can't possibly buy products that we make. We've decided that clean air and clean water is so important that we won't let industry build factories in this country, but we pay the Chinese and the Indians to poison their rivers and pollute their air so bad that occasionally a bit of their "brown cloud" blows over the Pacific ocean and across the entire north american continent and causes pollution alerts in Atlanta.

Plus we tax our workers and our companies so heavily that they have to earn twice what they need to live just so they can give half of it to the ever expanding government. A government which is growing much more quickly with Bush in the whitehouse and Republicans in the Congress.

And then we wonder why so many Americans are unemployed.

151 posted on 08/01/2003 4:04:17 PM PDT by cc2k
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To: Jeff Head
When you invite the immoral, totalitarian to play on your field, you undercut and corrupt the very most basic nature of the free market and corrupt it.

The UberRandians imagine that they can polish their wingtips by rolling in the filthy muck with pigs.

152 posted on 08/01/2003 4:05:22 PM PDT by Jim Cane
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To: Poohbah
Hell, folks like you were complaining that he was giving the store away.

Yep. We were all going to have to learn Japanese remember?

153 posted on 08/01/2003 4:05:48 PM PDT by Texas_Dawg ("...They came to hate their party and this president... They have finished by hating their country.")
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To: tiamat
Do you have a sister?

P.S. I would only nuke someone who repeatedly asks stupid questions.
154 posted on 08/01/2003 4:05:53 PM PDT by Buckwheats
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To: Poohbah

The Reagan admin did losen some trade restrictions, though got Japan to agree to export quotas for their cars. And while the Reagan admin did not resport to actual tariffs to protect industry in many cases, the dollar devaluation, while it took a while, did its job, and by 94, US industry was on the mend, Detroit was gaining marketshare, and even the steel industry was profitable again by then. I will be the first to say the Reagan and especially Bush 41 admin should have been far more proactive to ensure fair trade, but again, the dollar devaluation amounted to a large tariff.
155 posted on 08/01/2003 4:07:31 PM PDT by JNB
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To: HighRoadToChina
In the interests of avoiding unnecessary . . . assault . . . I think I'll just limit myself to saying CHEERS for your courage.

Far too many people are far too ignorant about the EXTENSIVE documentation of such things. And THAT was true 35 years ago and has gotten MORE TRUE month by month since then.

Sigh.

Sure Glad HE'S GOT THE WHOLE WORLD, IN *HIS* HANDS.

Blessings,
Get your NOMEX on!
156 posted on 08/01/2003 4:07:37 PM PDT by Quix (PLEASE SHARE THE TRUTH RE BILLDO AND SHRILLERY FAR AND WIDE)
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To: cc2k
If it is wrong (and illegal by federal law) for a company to exploit your next door neighbor and pay him less than the federal minimum wage, then it should be just as wrong to exploit the yellow people in China and the brown people in India.

It is only "wrong" in that it would be against a ridiculous law we created (the minimum wage). If I raise the price of goods in my store, you are not doing something "wrong" by shopping somewhere else. Americans corporations are not "exploiting" labor in China and India (although the ultra Left would totally agree with you there). The Chinese and Indian people line up out the door to work for these American firms when they come.

157 posted on 08/01/2003 4:08:16 PM PDT by Texas_Dawg ("...They came to hate their party and this president... They have finished by hating their country.")
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To: Jeff Head
Thanks for starting such a lively chat - I'll have to check back later.
158 posted on 08/01/2003 4:08:36 PM PDT by meadsjn
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To: JNB
Don't you hate having to repeat yourself? I could have sworn you said the same thing earlier...
159 posted on 08/01/2003 4:08:44 PM PDT by Cacophonous
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To: Texas_Dawg
Yep. We were all going to have to learn Japanese remember?

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

160 posted on 08/01/2003 4:11:07 PM PDT by Poohbah (Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women.)
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