Re: Ashish' post dated November 21 ---One version of free trade

[Ashish Hanwadikar <ashish_hanwadikar@yahoo.com>]

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Please help make the Manifesto better, or accept it, and propagate it!
---------------------------------------------------------------------
IPI_Marker

Hi Venkat,
> "Free trade" does not do good for all people.Some
> people are always going to get hit, very badly- the
> weak.
> As a student of history, I haven't come across any
> reference - where the weak nation/people benefitted
> from "free trade".

As a student of history, you must have definitely came across lots of
weak nations/people who got benefitted by import duties, huge
subsidizes, high taxes, huge and intruding beauracracy! Isn't it?

If "Free trade" is not going to do good for some weak people, people
like you and me who are concerned about this are always free and
welcome donate some of our wealth to this weak people. We can help them
feed and give them training for suvival in a "Free trade" regime.
I don't understand why Govt. physical force is seen as the best way to
help week people? Even if Govt.'s force is a good way why not have a
simple wealth transfer through combination of taxes and vouchers? Why
bother leving high import tarriff and why have myrid of regulations
which only benefit special interest groups?

Regards,
Ashish
--- Venkat Kesaraju <kevenkat@yahoo.com> wrote:
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Please help make the Manifesto better, or accept it, and propagate
> it!
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> IPI_Marker
>
> Once again Mr.VenuGopal asked the right questions.
>
> Yes- we need to deal with  issues case by case
> and always need to keep our interests in mind.
>
> There is no cure-all method or "ism".We need not
> sacrifice ourselves for the sake of cause or "ism" -
> all kinds of them.
> "Pure" Communists/socialists and whole lot of others
> tried to do just that- upholding only the "pure"cause
> while destroying everything else (including
> themselves).
>
> Are votaries of capitalism leading us in to the same
> path too?
> I can only pray that free trade-ism should not gain
> ground like other isms.
>
> "Free trade" does not do good for all people.Some
> people are always going to get hit, very badly- the
> weak.
>
> As a student of history, I haven't come across any
> reference - where the weak nation/people benefitted
> from "free trade".
>
>  Still the debate goes on....as it should...for our
> benefit :)
>
> Thanks
> Venkat
>
>
>
> --- venugopal <gvvs@nird.ap.nic.in> wrote:
> >
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > Please help make the Manifesto better, or accept it,
> > and propagate it!
> >
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > IPI_Marker
> > Hello Ashish,
> > Are you suggesting opening up imports while the
> > developed countries
> > continue
> > giving huge agricultural subsidies to their farmers?
> > What about the
> > TRIPS?
> > How would these things possibly promote free trade?
> > Which are the stupid
> >
> > regulations? Can you identify some of them? Perhaps
> > they can be dealt
> > with
> > case by case. In this post, I want to quote from an
> > article about
> > Stiglitz.
> > Of course, all this may or may not be applicable to
> > India's situation.
> > Nevertheless, it gives some idea of the picture:
> >
> > Nobel Prize winning economist Stiglitz, who was
> > earlier Chief Economist
> > of
> > the World Bank is reported to have admitted that
> > before prescribing
> > country-specific strategy, the World bank team
> > conducted thorough
> > investigations. These investigations " consist of
> > close inspection of a
> > nation's 5-star hotels. It concludes with the Bank
> > staff meeting some
> > begging, busted finance minister who is handed a
> > 'restructuring
> > agreement'
> > pre-drafted for his 'voluntary' signature"
> > It is also interesting that each Nation's economy is
> > individually
> > analysed.
> > But the same set of 4 prescriptions are given to
> > everybdoy. 1)
> > Privatisation: " Step One is Privatization - which
> > Stiglitz said could
> > more
> > accurately be called, 'Briberization.' Rather than
> > object to the
> > sell-offs
> > of state industries, he said national leaders -
> > using the World Bank's
> > demands to silence local critics - happily flogged
> > their electricity and
> >
> > water companies. "You could see their eyes widen" at
> > the prospect of 10%
> >
> > commissions paid to Swiss bank accounts for simply
> > shaving a few billion
> > off
> > the sale price of national assets."
> > 2)"Step Two of the IMF/World Bank one-size-fits-all
> > rescue-your-economy
> > plan
> > is 'Capital Market Liberalization.' In theory,
> > capital market
> > deregulation
> > allows investment capital to flow in and out.
> > Unfortunately, as in
> > Indonesia
> > and Brazil, the money simply flowed out and out.
> > Stiglitz calls this the
> >
> > "Hot Money" cycle. Cash comes in for speculation in
> > real estate and
> > currency, then flees at the first whiff of trouble.
> > A nation's reserves
> > can
> > drain in days, hours. And when that happens, to
> > seduce speculators into
> > returning a nation's own capital funds"
> > 3."Step Three: Market-Based Pricing, a fancy term
> > for raising prices on
> > food, water and cooking gas. This leads,
> > predictably, to
> > Step-Three-and-a-Half: what Stiglitz calls, 'The IMF
> > riot.' The IMF riot
> > is
> > painfully predictable. When a nation is, "down and
> > out, [the IMF] takes
> > advantage and squeezes the last pound of blood out
> > of them. They turn up
> > the
> > heat until, finally, the whole cauldron blows up,"
> > as when the IMF
> > eliminated food and fuel subsidies for the poor in
> > Indonesia in 1998.
> > Indonesia exploded into riots, but there are other
> > examples - the
> > Bolivian
> > riots over water prices last year and this February,
> > the riots in
> > Ecuador
> > over the rise in cooking gas prices imposed by the
> > World Bank. You'd
> > almost
> > get the impression that the riot is written into the
> > plan. (....and by
> > riots
> > I mean peaceful demonstrations dispersed by bullets,
> > tanks and
> > teargas...) "
> > 4."Now we arrive at Step Four of what the IMF and
> > World Bank call their
> > "poverty reduction strategy": Free Trade. This is
> > free trade by the
> > rules of
> > the World Trade Organization and World Bank,
> > Stiglitz the insider likens
> >
> > free trade WTO-style to the Opium Wars. "That too
> > was about opening
> > markets," he said. As in the 19th century, Europeans
> > and Americans today
> > are
> > kicking down the barriers to sales in Asia, Latin
> > American and Africa,
> > while
> > barricading our own markets against Third World
> > agriculture. In the
> > Opium
> > Wars, the West used military blockades to force open
> > markets for their
> > unbalanced trade. Today, the World Bank can order a
> > financial blockade
> > just
> > as effective - and sometimes just as deadly.
> > Stiglitz is particularly emotional over the WTO's
> > intellectual property
> > rights treaty (it goes by the acronym TRIPS, more on
> > that in the next
> > chapters). It is here, says the economist, that the
> > new global order has
> >
> > "condemned people to death" by imposing impossible
> > tariffs and tributes
> > to
> > pay to pharmaceutical companies for branded
> > medicines. "They don't
> > care,"
> > said the professor of the corporations and bank
> > loans he worked with,
> > "if
> > people live or die."
> > By the way, don't be confused by the mix in this
> > discussion of the IMF,


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the National Debate on System Reform.       debate@indiapolicy.org
Rules, Procedures, Archives:            ../debate/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------