Honestly the issue of free trade is obnoxious because everything free trade has done would be great for the world if we didn't live under capitalism.
The theory of free trade is that certain types of production move to where it is most effective to do so. Clothing made in parts of the world where it's easiest to grow cotton, electronics manufacturing all being centered in one region with 50 mil people to cut down on supply chain distance. These economies of scale make it so much easier to produce far more goods with less resources than ever before.
However, under our current system free trade destroys the livelihood of substance farmers in less industrialized countries forcing them away from food production into growing drugs (which the west regularly destroys their fields from), and in developed countries it totally destroyed their manufacturing bases alongside the labor movement that went along with it. And this is only scratching the surface.
But real talk, you do occasionally see people defend globalization on here, when it's by far the worst consequence that stemmed from the fall of the USSR. Communists should support economic stability above all, more rapid growth for China does in no way justify the damage free trade has done to literally every other country in the planet alongside the damage free trade did to rural China.
Growing wheat in the wheat climate and trading it with people who grow bananas in the banana climate makes a lot of sense and enriches everyone. But the profits go to the owners and, as if that wasn't already parasitic enough, for some reason they're all in wheat country.
Growing wheat in the wheat climate and trading it with people who grow bananas in the banana climate
That's still a waste of resources right now(carbon and energy, unless we can find a near-carbon free way of transport), unless your climate and soil can't feed you with necessary nutrients you shouldn't trade food in big quantities.
Capitalist free trade is all about exploration of labor, while sane/socialist free trade would be all about sustainable and simplified supply chains.
Free trade is also completely one sided and destructive without total and complete freedom of movement for workers. As in picking up and moving somewhere else isn't a problem financially or logistically. Without that, it's just exploitation.
Capitalist free trade isn't purely the first point, especially around the reason for why people like Obama or Biden support it. State department spooks that advocate for free trade are much more nationalist than liberal.
There's much more of a real politik nation building side to it that has nothing to do with making corporations richer. The US saw that other nations could maybe someday outpace them because they had a larger population, and in turn would be able to out compete because of larger economies of scale for their corporations. Transnational megacorps were seen as the only way for the US to have any sort of economic growth (but really sustained position economically in the world) in a world where China or india became developed.
Also I tend to think liberals agree on the point about free movement of people, if anything they're more supportive of that than the left is.
Lastly, capitalist free trade is absolutely a good thing for the professional middle class. It means both higher salaries and cheaper goods. The only group that suffers from this in wealthy countries are people working in factories (resource extraction like coal mining/logging and farming also benefits from free trade).
Honestly the issue of free trade is obnoxious because everything free trade has done would be great for the world if we didn't live under capitalism.
The theory of free trade is that certain types of production move to where it is most effective to do so. Clothing made in parts of the world where it's easiest to grow cotton, electronics manufacturing all being centered in one region with 50 mil people to cut down on supply chain distance. These economies of scale make it so much easier to produce far more goods with less resources than ever before.
However, under our current system free trade destroys the livelihood of substance farmers in less industrialized countries forcing them away from food production into growing drugs (which the west regularly destroys their fields from), and in developed countries it totally destroyed their manufacturing bases alongside the labor movement that went along with it. And this is only scratching the surface.
But real talk, you do occasionally see people defend globalization on here, when it's by far the worst consequence that stemmed from the fall of the USSR. Communists should support economic stability above all, more rapid growth for China does in no way justify the damage free trade has done to literally every other country in the planet alongside the damage free trade did to rural China.
Growing wheat in the wheat climate and trading it with people who grow bananas in the banana climate makes a lot of sense and enriches everyone. But the profits go to the owners and, as if that wasn't already parasitic enough, for some reason they're all in wheat country.
Isn't that just the most remarkable historical coincidence? Truly there must be an invisible hand guiding the markets.
Shit, the CIA has invisibility now!?
That's still a waste of resources right now(carbon and energy, unless we can find a near-carbon free way of transport), unless your climate and soil can't feed you with necessary nutrients you shouldn't trade food in big quantities.
Capitalist free trade is all about exploration of labor, while sane/socialist free trade would be all about sustainable and simplified supply chains.
Free trade is also completely one sided and destructive without total and complete freedom of movement for workers. As in picking up and moving somewhere else isn't a problem financially or logistically. Without that, it's just exploitation.
Capitalist free trade isn't purely the first point, especially around the reason for why people like Obama or Biden support it. State department spooks that advocate for free trade are much more nationalist than liberal.
There's much more of a real politik nation building side to it that has nothing to do with making corporations richer. The US saw that other nations could maybe someday outpace them because they had a larger population, and in turn would be able to out compete because of larger economies of scale for their corporations. Transnational megacorps were seen as the only way for the US to have any sort of economic growth (but really sustained position economically in the world) in a world where China or india became developed.
Also I tend to think liberals agree on the point about free movement of people, if anything they're more supportive of that than the left is.
Lastly, capitalist free trade is absolutely a good thing for the professional middle class. It means both higher salaries and cheaper goods. The only group that suffers from this in wealthy countries are people working in factories (resource extraction like coal mining/logging and farming also benefits from free trade).