Talk:Free trade debate

2005 Comments
This article, when I googled it, revealed that it had been copied from somewhere. But it was so many sites, and a couple were from wikipedia, so I wasn't sure if parts were copy-vios, or whether it was redundant info. REgardless, these issues should probably be addressed.--Esprit15d 20:15, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
 * This page is a moved part of the free trade topic, as it became too long (about 50kb) on that page. Mjolnir1984 20:24, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

New section needed for article
The article fails to acknowledge the controversy surrounding the use of the term "free trade" to describe NAFTA, CAFTA, GAT and similar trade agreements. Some economists such as Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, argue that these agreements are actually special interest trade agreements, which favor protectionism in some areas while opposing it in other areas. I know that the main article entitled "free trade" has a one sentence recognition of this point, but it them refers readers to this article. How about a section dealing with this portion of the controversy? Kmorford 19:37, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Picking up on this notion of definition, the statement that economists have consensus around free trade is utterly misleading. If by free trade the article referes to free and fair exchange, then certainly it would be reasonable to suggest consensus. "Free Trade" does not in our present context imply this, but rather may more accurately be a reference to the specific policies of neo-liberal economic ideology (especially those now refered to as the "Washington Consensus". As such there is a marked controversy in regards to the economic benefits of these polcies. The claim presented on this page ignores significant "economic" and historical arguments, especially those that reveal concerns over the impacts upon developing states. These certainly may be cited amongst social arguments, but are clearly based in economic evaluation. Such arguments might include but are not limited to: 1. the need for infant industry protection to achieve a comparative advantage and position in the market (consider Toyota, Korea, and the 'East Asian Miracle', not to mention the aversion of crisis by Malaysian non-compliance with especially conventioanl monetary policy). 2. The protection of economic sectors to facilitate diversification of industry to promote stability and economic security and 3. Policies to avoid/protect against "dumping" by articficially subsidized competiton from major developed states. The work of Ha Joon Chang provides significant argument to reveal the absence of consensus. Not to mention the emergence of 'development economics' more broadly which provides a number of scholars to counter this claim. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.0.167.180 (talk) 21:04, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Moral Arguments Against Free Trade
The article does not present moral arguments against free trade, while it presents arguments in favor of same.

128.151.161.49 Iain Marcuson
 * Don't know why, but morality seems to be integrated into arguments against free trade. Though I might be wrong. 128.195.178.119 18:50, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

WTF happened to this page?
I was just here yesterday and now it's totally different...no arguments against Free Trade, which totally sucks given that I have to do a debate on this tomorrow morning...

Someone PLEASE fix this!

''Indeed. It has been completely changed. I don't know if the "citation police" did it, or lobbyists.''

Dubious statement
"Free trade is supposed to "level the playing field" for all producers, but it assumes there is equality of some sort between nations in terms of their land, labourand capital." This needs a source, or perhaps it should be removed. I think it's debatable that "free trade is supposed to level the playing field." And the requirement of equality seems very dubious. How, exactly, is the playing field not level if land, labor and capital are unequal? In terms of relative political power? In terms of the distribution of the benefits of trade? What would this mean for, say, trade between the US and Japan, where there is clearly not parity in terms of land? So I see two problems with this statement: it lacks a source, and it is far too vague. Jbelleisle 01:08, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

What happenned to this page?!?!?
How did practically everything of substance in this article get deleted? I reverted to an initial version that actually said something. Mgunn 10:54, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! That's better.

hmm...
the article seemed somewhat one sided. Numerous sources for free-trade, not as many against. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.189.197.188 (talk) 13:47, 19 December 2006 (UTC).

One of the biggest criticisms of free trade is that the term itself is biased and trade practises always favor one or more groups over others. This article clouds the differences between free trade theory and trade practices, none of which are "free" of governmental or corporate influence. The introductory paragragh has economists "settled" on free trade, even though there really is no such thing in practice. Very dubious. 66.57.225.77 06:27, 26 December 2006 (UTC)


 * trade practises always favor one or more groups over others
 * Completely incorrect. Both partners making the trade obviously benefit, and economic theory shows that the monetary gains to the people making the trade is larger than losses of those sidelined by the trade.  See free trade.Mgunn 08:16, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Also, it is a fact that almost all economists believe free trade is beneficial. There are a few slam dunk cases in economics, and this is one of them.  Political opposition to free trade comes from the fact that many people benefit a little from free trade, while free trade can hurt a very small few quite a lot.  Imagine free trade makes 1000 consumers $1 richer but makes one sock producer $200 poorer.  The 1000 consumers aren't going to get mobilized over a $1 benefit, but the sock producer will phone his congressman because free trade is losing him $200.... however the net effect is a positive $800.  Also, if you aggregate imports of socks, shoes, vcrs, cars, microwaves, fruit, exports of medical equipment, software, computers, financial services, media, etc... the positive effects across the whole economy are huge. Mgunn 08:20, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

suggestion for this article
Instead of splitting into criticism and support, which is kind of divisive and not as informative, why not divide the article by issues and within each issue raise the arguments made by various people. Surely there's not just two opinions on the issue, and surely the many opinions that exist can be discussed on their merits alongside each other.--Urthogie 06:01, 30 December 2006 (UTC)


 * An interesting idea that I think could work, but I think there are a few main objections:
 * (1) It would be a tremendous amount of work (and I don't think this article has active editors).
 * (2) Issue based stuff on wikipedia can end up with a back and forth between different viewpoints that ends up in a jumbled mess. At least with pro & con, each side gets to present its own logical argument without constant interruption.
 * Just my thoughts! Mgunn 06:44, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
 * As for number 1, I think if we mapped it out on the talk page or even on a subpage in advance it would be easier to plan. As for number 2, abortion debate is a good example of where this is done right.  They key to avoiding a back and forth dialectic is to continuously split elements of a given issue as the arguments get more complex.  I think it's achievable and abortion debate did it quite well.--Urthogie 07:17, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

can someone put on the opposing side a paragraph discussing free trade's affect on immigration.

removed "see also" economists
I cut the "see also" links to economists. Ravi Batra was already linked in the text of the article, so that's no problem. These three aren't mentioned in the article: Cretog8 (talk) 17:10, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Paul Craig Roberts
 * Jerry Mander (OK, maybe not an economist, but anyway...)
 * Alan Blinder

McDonalds critique
Regarding the McDonalds-war bit, and this edit, it seems like that's a critique which (instead of coming from you) could come from a cited reference.Cretog8 (talk) 16:48, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

That McDonald's thing has been uncited for a long time. I gather it comes from Thomas Friedman's book, The Lexus and the Olive Tree. I don't have the book, can someone look it up and reference it, and clarify which part comes from Friedman and which parts are post-Friedman? For that matter, the notion is all over WP: Golden arches theory, Golden arches theory. And it looks as though it's way more rhetorical than real, in which case it might well not belong in this article. Cretog8 (talk) 04:01, 2 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I looked it up, it really comes from Friedman's book. However, there is no mention of 122 countries with McDonald's franchise as far as I could see. -- Vision  Thing -- 11:17, 2 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Good enough, thanks. I got rid of the 122, since it doesn't match List_of_countries_with_McDonalds_franchises. Cretog8 (talk) 12:02, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Most economists agree Free Trade is good (a citation)
I noticed that there's no citation for the fact that the vast majority of economists (99%) agree that the complete abolition of tariffs, subsidies and quotas would be beneficial. Could someone please add this: http://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/sofiwp/2006_006.html

It's a link to a paper by Daniel Klein and Charlotta Stern where they survey the American Economic Association (the world's premier professional economics association). This is the working paper version but another version was also published in the peer-reviewed American Journal of Economics and Sociology. Mookrit (talk) 15:17, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Have you read the link. it doesnt show this at all. What it shows is that a group of 264 American economists (not world wide) returned a survey sent to a total of  1000 selected economists (the survey does not reveal the way in which the selection of 1000 was made) (see pages 5 -6) The  only question  about free trade was Tariffs on imported goods to protect American industries and jobs: and most economists strongly opposed that statement.

Its simply not true that the vast majority of economists (99%) agree that the complete abolition of tariffs, subsidies and quotas would be beneficial. Now to rewrite the article according to the facts Backnumber1662 (talk) 06:38, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

What worries me
What worries me about this page is that while essentially 99% of all economists are in favour of Free Trade (whether absolute or relative, or progressing toward Free Trade) this page still presents the debate as though it is still contentious. It has been established long ago that Free Trade is beneficial, and yet we still pretend to be politically "correct" and have almost the same amount of content for both sides.

Come on. Facts over political correctness please - if economics students come to this page and after an hour of reading this page they still have to ask their teachers whether Free Trade is beneficial, then this page is really not serving its purpose. I know that it was already said "Almost all economists are in favour of Free Trade", but the sheer number of arguments against it could put some doubts in readers. I suggest that the benefits of Free Trade be emphasized and made explicit rather than implicit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.238.88.119 (talk) 11:56, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Economists favor free trade because -- on a global level -- it makes the world richer. The global indicators all go up. But not all parts of the world benefit equally from the increases -- free trade can actually enhance the gap between rich and poor, leaving some parts of the world (relatively) worse off than before. Even if every boat rises -- if your boat rises by a meter and mine by a centimeter, you have gained on my position. The usual argument against free trade is a nationalist argument -- that free trade is "local pain for global gain" -- meaning that if 100 jobs are destroyed locally and 200 jobs created overseas, the world benefits but your local area suffers. The reason economists favor free trade is because they look at global measures, not local ones. Chesspride 172.164.5.148 (talk) 18:12, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

What about free trade and dumping's impacts on developing nations??
I don't understand why there is not a comprehensive section on free trade's role in dumping.

Transnational corporations have major sway over prices in regards to agriculture, they have economies of scale on their side and so they overproduce and reduce world commodity prices to next to nothing. With loans and promises of access to foreign markets, the World Bank, IMF, etc. grant to developing countries. In return the developing countries grant unrestricted access (removal of tariffs, quotas, etc.) to its markets and must import foreign goods. However developed nations massively subsidize (and guarantee floor prices for domestics) their agricultural and manufacturing industries particularily TNCs, which encourage overproduction which then leads to lower world prices. So when these cheap goods flood the developing nations, the local industries cannot compete price-wise and are forced into poverty or leaving farming.

And those developing farmers are forced to export their crops, of course there is little help from their governments (who dont have the subsidizing power that the USA or Europe has), and they sell at the world prices. Again they lose.

And all we hear in Western media is that China is the only "dumping" culprit.

^Um... you do realize that agricultural dumping backed by US/EU subsidies is NOT FREE TRADE? Subsidies are actually a protectionist tool. Hence dumping is not a downside of free trade, if there was truly free trade, dumping would not exist. Go and bother the US Govt and their lobbyists for it.

source: The Rise and Predictable Fall of Globalized Industrial Agriculture. By Debbie Barker. Publisher: The International Forum on Globalization. (a excellent article that you can find online that offers overview of issues and possible solutions; i just scratched the surface in my summary) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rabbithair (talk • contribs) 01:32, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

--- By rabbithair "Transnational corporations have major sway over prices in regards to agriculture, they have economies of scale on their side and so they overproduce and reduce world commodity prices to next to nothing."

I have to disagree with this, considering the fact that the introduction of ethanol and biodiesel have increased the price of corn and soybeans in the US and worldwide to a considerable degree. These new industries were lead by research concluded by multinational corporations. 173.25.56.22 (talk) 06:23, 14 November 2010 (UTC) J. Berger

Kevin Flanagan
The following sentence is included in the Kevin Flanagan article: "Many opponents of heavy free trade view this incident as a key event marking the transition of blue-collar globalization-related job loss to white-collar losses." Is this true? Ottawahitech (talk) 14:16, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
 * It's not a turning point. I hadn't even heard of this person until now.
 * Incidentally, that wording has a serious neutrality problem. The jobs are transferred - typically to poorer countries - rather than lost; although it's quite normal for people to hold beliefs which imply that people born in a different country aren't really people. bobrayner (talk) 14:26, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
 * The most problematic content seems to have been added in this diff. Fixed now. bobrayner (talk) 14:45, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Lead paragraph POV
"The academic debate among economists is currently settled in favor of free trade, with a consensus having existed since at least the 1960s, based on theories dating to the 18th century."

This paragraph has for reference Milton Friedman, a staunch free trade enthusiast. I bet if we used Paul Krugman as a reference, he'd say the opposite. If no one objects, I'll remove this biased statement. Pikolas (talk) 16:37, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Rewrite needed
For example under 'Increasing commerce makes war less likely' "Political resources being a function of wealth, the result is that states within the liberal system, are greatly in influenced by wealthy, and political able actors to not screw anything up with a way. I would take care in attempting to apply the economics of the past to fit the phenomena we have now as a result of information technology. There are few countries that can claim self-sufficiency." 146.115.129.15 (talk) 00:44, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

indifference curve graphs invalid
those graphs are terrible because they have indifference curves with positive slopes in parts. indifference curves CAN NEVER have positively sloping parts! 196.210.195.53 (talk) 23:11, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Deletion of Section on Dubious Assumptions of Free-Trade Economic Theory
This section was deleted on the grounds that it cited someone who a) doesn't have a PhD in economics and b) doesn't publish economic research.

Contention b) is simply false: Google "ian fletcher" "real world economics review" or check in Google Scholar citations.

Contention a) is irrelevant. Are only political scientists permitted to express opinions about politics?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ianfletcher (talk • contribs) 21:23, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

UPDATE: My section was deleted again, on grounds of self-citation. Self-citation is not prohibited by Wikipedia policy; please go actually read that policy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ianfletcher (talk • contribs) 23:54, 29 February 2016 (UTC)