Free Trade Dogma Runs Very Deep |
Political poster from the British Liberal Party.
People in cults often find it nearly impossible to get outside the cult outlook on the world. This is very much true of the leading intellectuals in our policy discussions. They all talk about “free trade” as though it is something that the United States has been moving toward in our trade agreements. This is a dogma held both by the proponents of the trade deals made over the last four decades, who dub them as “free trade” agreements and the opponents who proudly pronounce themselves as critics of free trade.
The absurdity of this claim should be apparent to anyone who looked at the trade deals for more than a minute. A major part of all our trade deals for the last four decades has been making patent and copyright monopolies longer and........