Sunday, June 27, 2010

Free Trade and Standards

To believe that we can maintain our standard of living, environmental protections, and decent labor standards—while laying open our borders to unrestricted imports from nations where no such standards exist—is delusional.

The inevitable result of unregulated free trade is the emergence of an international plutocracy, the destruction of middle classes where they exist, crashing of income levels in the developed world, and widespread environmental degradation. 

These are not accidental byproducts of the emerging free-trade regime – they are its raison d'ĂȘtre.