NGOs for global free trade

[Socialist Christian]

http://www.nationalpost.com/financialpost/story.html?id=D39ACE3A-D159-43B6-B31F-5AC3A713C28D


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'The poor have nothing to lose but their poverty," say pro-trade NGOs

NGOs are urging the business, civil society and political leaders from the western hemisphere that have gathered in Miami for the Free Trade Areas of America Ministerial to promote real free trade.

The Global Freedom to Trade Campaign, a coalition of pro-globalization NGOs, is calling upon leaders to tear down trade barriers. Over the next few days, protesters will blame the world's problems on free trade, but the problem is quite the opposite. Margalit Edelman of International Policy Network explains: "Restrictions on trade are the cause of the world's problems, not the cure. Economic activity is stifled if governments do not adequately protect property rights and contracts, promote rule of law, create free markets for exchange and craft transparent rules and regulations."

Meanwhile, incentives to invest in business are undermined when governments do not adequately protect property rights -- both real and intellectual. Edelman continues, "Clear rights of ownership and the freedom to buy and sell goods without government intervention are not only fundamental human rights, they are the bedrock of economic development, which is the only way out of poverty."

[Lydia Leftcoast]

1. Well, I half-agree

Free trade among countries of similar economic standards would be a good idea, such as a free trade agreement among Mexico and the Central American countries, or the existing ASEAN agreement among the countries of Southeast Asia.

That way, the various countries can develop their domestic markets, building upon their existing strengths and practicing "import replacement." This would give incentives for indigenous entrepreneurs to make clothes or agricultural implements or canned food for their own people and the people of their own region.

(For example, the government of Grenada that Reagan overthrew in 1983 was encouraging locals to set up juice bottling and jam making plants to process the island's citrus crops so that islanders wouldn't have to drink imported juice and eat imported marmelade when they were surrounded by orange and grapefruit trees.)

It would actually improve a country's economy if it were to process its cash crops domestically instead of selling raw materials to more developed countries at rock bottom prices and then having to reimport the finished products.

But the NGOs are corect in saying that lack of clear title to land and credit is a huge obstacle for Third World people trying to break out of poverty.