Wednesday 29 July 2015

Quote of the day: On genuine free trade

“Genuine free trade doesn’t require a treaty (or its deformed cousin, a “trade agreement”) … If
the establishment truly wants free trade, all it has to do is to repeal our numerous tariffs, import quotas, anti-“dumping” laws, and other … restrictions on trade. No foreign policy or foreign manoeuvring is needed.
    “If authentic free trade ever looms on the policy horizon, there’ll be one sure way to tell. The government/media/big-business complex will oppose it tooth and nail. We’ll see a string of
op-eds ‘warning’ about the imminent return of the 19th century. Media pundits and academics
will raise all the old canards against the free market, that it’s exploitative and anarchic without government ‘coordination.’ The establishment would react to instituting true free trade about as enthusiastically as it would to repealing the income tax.”

- Murray Rothbard, ‘The NAFTA Myth,’ 1993

1 comment:

Paul Walker said...

"Genuine free trade doesn’t require a treaty"

Indeed it does not. We have free trade between the North and South Islands but has any one seen the treaty that bought this about? The good that managed trade agreements can do is to move countries towards free trade. Less is more when it comes to trade restrictions.