Is_Free_Trade_Fair_

Is free-trade fair' Why or why not' In today’s world, the discipline of international economy deals mostly with fair distribution of collective income. At this point, we should clarify concepts and terms and make specific and clear definitions of those. For instance, what does exactly the word fair mean to you' On the other hand, there are several approaches to this collective goods problem. We should emphasize them in the most accurate way, and then decide whether free trade goes hand-in-hand with fair trade. As far as I could judge all of the things I know about this issue, I can simply say that freedom of trade does not bring about fairness to trade, and also for the society as a whole. To begin with, we should clarify concepts about this issue. For example, is fairness distributing the collective income to all the society regardless of their contribution to the production' Or, does it mean that we can talk about fairness only if we distribute the income to whom really worth it' In my opinion, to judge people’s real contribution to the production is not easy. In this existing so-called free trade system, the poor can not reach to the production means. For most cases, one is born in poverty and dies with that. One is born with prosperity and lives with that. Thus, I think the former question above holding the definition of fairness seems more accurate. The ongoing efforts to liberalize trade seem insufficient. We are talking about NAFTA, Customs Union and the like, but even in those organizations there are restrictions to trade. EU’s common market works for the EU exclusive members, and NAFTA’s free trade works for only the members of it. These kind of organizations also admit that they remove “most of the barriers to trade”, but not all of them. Laissez-faire advocates put their thoughts straight: International trade without the interference of tariffs, subsidies, and price controls is by far the most efficient way of matching global supply to demand while making all the participants more prosperous. They claim that the best indicator of fairness in a broad sense is raising prosperity. Well, it is good to talk. However, in reality, facts do not indicate such outcomes. WTO itself does not act equal to rich and poor countries. We constitute a supranational organization “to regulate free trade”, and even that organization can not do its duty with absolute fairness. You simply can not blame third world countries for not opening their markets to get rid of poverty. How can the USA or EU member countries convince those third world countries to open their markets, as the former colonialist of them' It is not possible to persuade them with acting contrary to the free trade in today’s world. There are also several approaches to the justice of free trade, including Marx’s arguments and dependency theories. Marx lived so long time ago, the conditions changed a lot and thousand of studies and schools emerged years after he died. However, in view his thoughts are still very effective and valid in most cases. Marx argues that there are two sources of income in open market system: sale of one’s own labor and ownership of the means of production. Because workers can not produce anything without access to the means of production, they are forced to sell their labor to the owner in return for a wage. However, the owner does not pay workers the full value of their labor. The difference between the value of their labor and the wages they receive is taken by the owner and becomes the source of the owner’s profit. As a result, those who own the means of production gradually become wealthier, and workers become poorer. With its alienation theory, Marx referred to the separation of things that naturally belong together. He believed that alienation is a systematic result of capitalism. He also believed that the free trade places the governments to a lower order, serving to the interests of ruling economic class. Dependency theories, on the other hand, state that richer and powerful nations are collectively known as the "core," while lesser developed countries and other very poor countries are known collectively as the "periphery." The increased interdependency of economic activity throughout the world facilitates uneven development between different countries. The more the country approaches to the core, the more it prospers. In short, dependency theories maintain that the terms of trade between center and periphery nations are unbalanced and thus, unfair. There is a quote which draws attention related with these phenomena, by sociologist and world-system analyst, Immanuel Wallerstein: “In the sixteenth century, Europe was like a bucking bronco. The attempt of some groups to establish a world-economy based on a particular division of labor, to create national states in the core areas as politico-economic guarantors of this system, and to get the workers to pay not only the profits but the costs of maintaining the system was not easy. It was to Europe's credit that it was done, since without the thrust of the sixteenth century the modern world would not have been born and, for all its cruelties, it is better that it was born than that it had not been.” * To sum up, I can readily claim that the free trade does not goes hand-in-hand with fair trade. Enjoying foreign goods of your local supermarket is fine, but the core of this phenomenon is not that. I think there are very urgent and significant problems if the only desire of people in one country is to upgrade their I-Phones and the only desire of people in another country is not to catch river blindness and to keep breathing. *The Modern World-System, vol. I, p. 233