Profit & Loss

[Teufelsdröckh]

Trade Restrictions Cost World's Poor 2.5 Billion Dollars Each Year:
<http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0514-01.htm>

What have the GATT and NAFTA and various other "free trade" treaties
done to alleviate this problem? Or the IMF and World Bank? Very little,
it seems. Why? Just as democracy must be tempered by constitutional
protection of the minority and the weak, establishing certain rights as
beyond the reach of majority rule, outside the control of the powerful,
lest democracy exist only as the voice of the mob, so too free trade,
however much it appears to be fair, is not unless it provide for the
weak and poor. The remedies of the GATT and NAFTA are not as accessible
to the poor as they are to the rich. Justice costs money. Therefore the
rich enjoy more of it.

Unless a trade agreement explicitly address the disparity in resources
for pursuing justice, it would not be fair. It would inevitably serve to
further the interests of the rich. That's why protesters in Québec and
elsewhere call for f a i r trade instead of f r e e trade.

--
Teufelsdröckh

P.S. I didn't get a chance to ask Tom about this, but I don't think he'd
mind my putting in these few words against the arrogant (unknowingly,
usually) powerful.