[governance] Clinton Admits: "Free" Trade is Harmful to 3rd

Tue Apr 6 09:50:04 EDT 2010

Building pro and con balance sheets regarding Free Trade is generally unhealthy because it avoids evaluation on an individual case by case basis. Free Trade does not eradicate greed and avarice or social injustice. Restrictions and taxation do not ensure cultural and national well being. Free Trade is a removal of Governance/artificial controls. All freedoms run the risk of abuse. All abuse runs the risk of romoving freedoms.
But we should never forget that freedom gives a choice to those effected and their choice may be to end a practice that you like.

--- On Mon, 4/5/10, Roxana Goldstein <goldstein.roxana at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Roxana Goldstein <goldstein.roxana at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [governance] Clinton Admits: "Free" Trade is Harmful to 3rd
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org, "Milton L Mueller" <mueller at syr.edu>
Date: Monday, April 5, 2010, 11:54 PM

Dear Milton,

I come from a developing country -Argentina-, and from a region full of underdeveloped sectors -Latin America-.

There are many studies -economical, political, sociological, cultural, etc-, carried out by the most prominent international organisations and institutions such as ECLAC, IADB, etc. which affirm and conclude and advice on the catastrofic impacts that market liberalisation  policies have had in the region. Meaning this that perhaps liberalisation is not bad in itself, but that the policies that have been pushed in the region -under the globalisation process-, have produced very bad impacts specially on human development.

I know that this is off topic for the list, so I suggest that I can send you many documents that support what I am saying here to your private mail, if you wish.

Best regards,
Roxana

2010/4/4 Milton L Mueller <mueller at syr.edu>

Gurstein:
Clinton didn't "admit" that free trade was bad for "3rd world countries" he stated that it was bad for Haitian rice farmers. Which it may well have been - some of them are not competitive. Farmers have been moved "off the land" in every developing economy; typically that's part of the development process.

Always missing from the free trade critics perspective is the harms done to the 70-80% of the population who pay more for rice because of the trade protectionism. So, how much more should all those poor people be forced to pay for food so that the economy can conform to romantic notions of yeoman farmers and self-sufficiency?

While the emotional impact of this article trades on the Haiti earthquake disaster, I have trouble understanding how total dependence on local sources of food production protects you against a local earthquake. I guess people will use anything to milk such things to support their favored political agenda.

The idea that a small island economy such as Haiti can be "self-sufficient" in _anything_ is worth treating critically, if your target is developed country standards of living. It reminds me of the crappy nonsense American politicians like to say about making us "self-sufficient in oil." This plays well in any election even though everyone knows that it's utter nonsense and will never happen. How about maintaining good relations with other countries and paying fair prices for things, instead of seeking an artificial "national" self-sufficiency?

Or maybe we should make the state of New York self-sufficient in oil, food, etc. and stop trading with the rest of the world. That'll do our economy a world of good.

To add icing to the cake, ARIN's Curran agrees with a protectionist trade policy - which would be disastrous if taken very far - because it suits his very short term and narrow agenda of justifying ARIN's centralized control of internet resources. Talk about a tail wagging a dog....

--MM

> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Curran [mailto:jcurran at arin.net]
> Sent: Saturday, April 03, 2010 1:02 PM
> To: michael gurstein
> Cc: governance at lists.cpsr.org
> Subject: Re: [governance] Clinton Admits: "Free" Trade is Harmful to 3rd
>
> Interesting article... There are indeed times when a more "efficient"
> distribution of resources via a free market doesn't actually create
> a more desirable outcome.  Economic models can be good in theory, but
> also need to be tempered in implementation with consideration of the
> potential impacts in the real world (and particularly with respect to
> discontiguous events).
>
> /John
>
>
> On Apr 2, 2010, at 11:57 AM, michael gurstein wrote:
>
> > This isn't directly about Internet Governance but rather about overall
> > issues underlying "Global Governance" of which Internet Governance is
> IMHO a
> > subset hence I think that the below might be of some interest:
> >
> > http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
> dyn/content/article/2010/03/20/AR2010032001
> > 329_pf.html
> >
> > Former US president admits trade policies were "a mistake"
> >
> > During testimony before a US Senate committee three weeks ago, Clinton
> > admitted that requiring Haiti to lower its tariffs on rice imports
> made it
> > impossible for Haitian farmers to compete. The trade policy forced
> farmers
> > off the land and undercut Haiti's ability to feed itself.
> >
> > "It may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has
> not
> > worked. It was a mistake," Clinton - now a UN special envoy to Haiti -
> told
> > the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 10. "I had to live
> > everyday with the consequences of the loss of capacity to produce a
> rice
> > crop in Haiti to feed those people because of what I did; nobody
> else."
> >
> > Clinton´s apology attracted scant media attention in the US and none
> in
> > Canada. It was included as part of an Associated Press news agency
> report
> > that was published by the Washington Post on March 20. The AP report
> from
> > Haiti´s earthquake-ravaged capital, Port au Prince, suggests world
> leaders
> > are reconsidering trade and aid policies that make poor countries
> dependent
> > on rich ones. It quotes UN aid official John Holmes as saying that
> poor
> > countries, like Haiti, need to become more self-sufficient by
> rebuilding
> > their own food production. "A combination of food aid, but also cheap
> > imports have...resulted in a lack of investment in Haitian farming,
> and that
> > has to be reversed," Holmes told AP. "That's a global phenomenon, but
> > Haiti´s a prime example. I think this is where we should start."
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