I agree that it is rare to find a situation where that which is economically beneficial is also the right thing to do, and the WTO is NOT the exception that proves the rule. Setting aside the protests over human rights and labor standards, setting aside the environmental concerns, all of which is done far too easily in this day and age of "I've got mine, who cares?" mentality, the argument that the trade is free is, at best, specious. Free trade can only exist where all parties are on an equal footing. We, here in the US, tend to assume that every person on this planet has the same access to information about their government that we do, and therefor are able to, at some level, have an effect on their own future by being involved in their own governance. It just isn't so. Until information is allowed to pass freely within countries and without, there can be no equal footing. As to the developing countries, most of the developing is being done by multi-national corporations that have their main headquarters, and hence their main profits, outside of the countries that are being exploited. It is these same companies who are the chief instigator of protests against environmental concerns, and who shape, through economic blackmail and coercion, the attitude of the countries they are involved in. It is equally intellectually dishonest and morally reprehensible to ignore that the transfer of costs alluded to are actually done to rich corporations that then have to bear some financial responsibility for their actions. I remember a time in Arizona where, in the early 70's, the argument was about air polution. The suggestion was made that air scrubbers be put on the stacks of the smelting units at the mines, and the howls of outrage by the mining corporations were great. They went on to blame everything from automobiles to forest fires for the problems hitting Phoenix at the time, yet when analysis of the air itself showed fairly conclusively that the byproducts of the stacks were the problem they then switched to how unfair it was to force them to pay to not pollute. I think that what we see now is a better orchestrated and covert attempt to subvert environmental and human rights issues by hiding behind foreign governments being done by those same types of companies.
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I agree that it is rare to find a situation where that which is economically beneficial is also the right thing to do, and the WTO is NOT the exception that proves the rule. Setting aside the protests over human rights and labor standards, setting aside the environmental concerns, all of which is done far too easily in this day and age of "I've got mine, who cares?" mentality, the argument that the trade is free is, at best, specious. Free trade can only exist where all parties are on an equal footing. We, here in the US, tend to assume that every person on this planet has the same access to information about their government that we do, and therefor are able to, at some level, have an effect on their own future by being involved in their own governance. It just isn't so. Until information is allowed to pass freely within countries and without, there can be no equal footing. As to the developing countries, most of the developing is being done by multi-national corporations that have their main headquarters, and hence their main profits, outside of the countries that are being exploited. It is these same companies who are the chief instigator of protests against environmental concerns, and who shape, through economic blackmail and coercion, the attitude of the countries they are involved in. It is equally intellectually dishonest and morally reprehensible to ignore that the transfer of costs alluded to are actually done to rich corporations that then have to bear some financial responsibility for their actions. I remember a time in Arizona where, in the early 70's, the argument was about air polution. The suggestion was made that air scrubbers be put on the stacks of the smelting units at the mines, and the howls of outrage by the mining corporations were great. They went on to blame everything from automobiles to forest fires for the problems hitting Phoenix at the time, yet when analysis of the air itself showed fairly conclusively that the byproducts of the stacks were the problem they then switched to how unfair it was to force them to pay to not pollute. I think that what we see now is a better orchestrated and covert attempt to subvert environmental and human rights issues by hiding behind foreign governments being done by those same types of companies.