Don Boudreaux was asked to list the "five most ridiculous beliefs that many people hold about economics or politics – beliefs that should be recognised as ridiculous by any sane adult, regardless of education or exposure to economics." And they are, in ascending order:
1. Free trade is a plot by elites to enable corporations to profit at the expense of ordinary people.
2. The war on drugs protects us and our children from violence and other crimes.
3. Those immigrants – you know, the kind who mow your lawn, work as maids in the motel you last stayed at [or at the old folks home your mum is at], deliver and install the new dishwasher you bought, and are part of the construction crew building the new road in town – are lazy welfare leeches who are stealing jobs.
4. Government officials who do not know you care about you enough for you to trust them with power over you.
5. The most precious right an individual can have is the right to vote.
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Say there is an asset for sale like a commercial building in Wellington and there are five bidders.
Three bidders are NZ companies, one bidder is an Australian company and one bidder is a Chinese company.
Over the trading history of the NZ companies they had to pay high tax, have to follow strict rules around employment, trade practices, consumer legislation and the environment.
Over the trading history of the Australian company they had to pay high tax, have to follow strict rules around employment, trade practices, consumer legislation and the environment.
The Chinese company has faced no such regulation. Over the trading history of the Chinese company it has paid almost no tax, engaged in corruption, treated staff like serfs and dumps its crap into the local river. Now like the NZ & Aust companies the Chinese company uses its retained earnings to compete for a building.
Is this free trade? As is the situation now.
The NZ building owner benefits (and the NZ economy by extension of this free trade apparently) from the overseas Chinese investment. But does the NZ economy become beholden to Chinese trade and business practices?
And what of NZ companies that have to directly compete against these advantages to Chinese companies?
And what of the Chinese citizenry who suffer directly from these business & trade practices without recourse?
And in a pure free trade theory would not the Chinese company be able to set up a factory in NZ and hire child labor in the same way as it operates in China? That’s if NZ accepts unchecked products and investment from China.
“The most precious right an individual can have is the right to vote.”
Interesting that this features on a post promoting free trade. Where NZ largest export market is China.
Can free trade and the right to vote co-exist? Not so.
How can NZ vote to change China’s trade practices? How can the Chinese themselves?
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