Block, Siteadmin, SkipCaptcha, Upload, Automoderated users, delete, edit, move, nsTeam2RO, nsTeam2RW, nsTeam2_talkRO, nsTeam2_talkRW, protect, rollback, Administrators, template
292,430
edits
Changes
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Line 21:
Line 21: + + + + + + + + + + +
→Background
As manufacturing jobs were relocated to the low wage, developing world in an effort to "level the playing field" and address [[income inequality]] with the [[Third World]], the greedy global progressive elites became more powerful at the expense of workers. Workers were compensated for job loss with the [[deregulation]] and mass marketing of [[Opiate|opiod]]s.
As manufacturing jobs were relocated to the low wage, developing world in an effort to "level the playing field" and address [[income inequality]] with the [[Third World]], the greedy global progressive elites became more powerful at the expense of workers. Workers were compensated for job loss with the [[deregulation]] and mass marketing of [[Opiate|opiod]]s.
===Free trade as a Cold War weapon===
The modern [[Free trade]] movement grew up as a weapon in the ideological confrontation between [[capitalism]] and [[communism]] of the [[Cold War]] era. The capitalist nations favored free trade as a way to promote economic integration, reduce international tensions, and raise living standards; the communist nations - who rejected personal freedom and [[profit]], rejected the very idea of trade, unless trade is managed by and for the public treasury of communist regimes, who in turn dole out any gains from trade, if and when gains occur, to [[communist party]] members and friends.
Theoretically, the advocates of free trade argued, reduction of tariffs would encourage non-democratic and corrupt developing world regimes to become more [[democracy|democratic]]. Alternatively, in the communist bloc of nations, all the contradictions of [[Marxism]] prohibited individuals from making any choices to improve their own economic wellbeing or engage in trade with a profit motive.
By 2014, when improvement of the [[human rights]] record in countries such as [[Russia]], [[China]], [[Saudi Arabia]], [[Mexico]] or [[Turkey]], to name only a few, failed to materialize, the belief that shipping U.S. and EU manufacturing jobs to less developed countries would encourage them to become more democratic was exposed as seriously flawed. The [[Iran nuke deal]] - reducing trade restrictions against Iran, and the [[Magnitsky Act]] or Russia sanctions bill are testaments of the false premise - that free trade leads to democratization and improved human rights. The free trade movement in America was built on this false premise beginning in the 1980s.
The post-[[World War II]] free trade movement really dates from the mid 1950s and creation of the European Common Market, which evolved into the European Union with its own [[parliament]] by the 1980s. To compete with the burgeoning economic power of the European Union, reducing North American trade barriers was finalized in the [[NAFTA]] agreement by 1996. Cold War politics cannot be overlooked in understanding how the modern free trade movement was built on a house of cards.
The artificial Europesn Union superstate was built without a defense budget - the U.S. taxpayer picking up the tab. Meantime, the violent worldwide Marxist revolution aimed at exporting Soviet weapons from Russia to Cuba, to [[Nicaragua]], to [[El Salvador]] and all [[Central America]], and eventually Mexico and the United States to overthrow the capitalist international order, liberate the oppressed masses, and establish [[Socialism]]. Raising living standards in Mexico via free trade and NAFTA was seen as a way to counter Marxist revolutionary ideology, Soviet [[foreign policy]], and compete with the Euro zone.
===The disconnect===
===The disconnect===