okay, i hate doing presentations...but i'm supposed to do a 2-3 minute one on free trade. I'm supposed to be against it and use the infant-industry argument to defend protectionism. Can you guys give me some pointers or facts or websites? Thanks.
Make sure you mention theories of endogeneous growth, look for works of Bahgwadi(sp?) from U columbia. some sourceful pointers: Allan Deardoff's site at U of Michigan IMF and World bank Working paper and staff paper site Roubini's site at U columbia Good luck
You didn't study enough To 3814: I forgot you need also mention the inflexibility of domestic economic structure and learning by doing being justification of temp protectionism.
I graduated magna c*m laude with an economics degree from Rice. I know plenty about studying. The coursework I elected and the books I have read subsequent to college have all been free trade/laissez faire theory. I've studied *plenty*.
That's still not enough Explaining to me the puzzle of missing trade, the debate of trade and technology in North-North trade and North-south trade, the research status of relation between FDI and trade, and the direction of modern trade theory then I'll let you pass
There's no sane argument against it. I suggest you get up there and say: "Free trade... it's like, bull**** man! Like... McDonald's and the Gap and Starbucks and all that corporate ****, man... it's totally just an excuse for rich people to, you know, exploitify the worker class protelariat and ****. It's like that dude in Russia, you know, Stalingrad said. Like, 'POWER TO THE PEOPLE' and 'DOWN WITH MCDONALDS!'" copyright 2000, "The Collected Works of Tabitha Soren"
There are plenty of arguments against free trade. They are not necessarily economically sound on the whole, but they do have support from various perspectives. (1) The economic argument centers around, as you mentioned, infant industries. The idea is that your country wants to develop an industry, but needs time to do so. With free trade, your economy may never get the opportunity to develop said industry. With protectionism, you can develop it and then open it up for trade later when you have become more competitive and efficient in the area. (2) The other argument is more of a moral argument. Steel tariffs are justified not in the fact that they are good for society as a whole. They are justified in the fact that dropping those tariffs and importing steel would destroy age-old communities in the steel towns of the northeast. These towns are filled with people who have done steel-work their entire lives. They often don't have skills in other fields and no one's going to be interested in hiring older workers and retraining them for something new. One odd corollary to this is free food aid that we send around the world. In places that are starving, we often overload them with food. One result of this, however, can be that the farmers that actually do live in those countries are driven to poverty because no one buys their food anymore (or the prices get driven down, at the least). It's an odd phenomenon, but it apparently happens. The problem is when you look at it from a global / national perspective - free trade will always win out because its almost universally better in the overall scheme of things. The argument for protectionism comes from taking it down to the local perspective and you can argue that it can destroy communities and regions.
Harpers magazine seems to crusade against free trade now every month to the point of becoming annoying. Check the issues over the past year. Not all of the arguments shake out, of course, but some of them are all right as a jumping off point. Using my econ minor knowledge from way back when, my argument if I were in your shoes would go something along the lines of free trade brings along too many long term negative externalities which results in bad stuff (pollution, poverty, you could even tie it in to terrorism and such if you wanted and use Saudi Arabia as an example)
my part of the argument (there are 5 of us supposed to argue against free trade and 5 to argue for it) is supposed to be very closely related to the infant-industry argument. Lots of your guys stuff has been useful. Thanks! and keep it comin .
I would definitely quote Mav3434, "free trade brings along too many long term negative externalities which results in bad stuff", only simplify it so everyone in class can understand it. How about, " free trade is very bad because negative externalities result in bad stuff ". That should get you an 'A'.
Oh yeah, and I am an economics grad from UT in Austin, so you should trust me. Of course, I was a 'C minus' student.
I am sure BK's argument was the most helpful. Maybe you should just get a caveman mask and a long stick. You could hop around and shout "Free Trade Bad, Expensive Trade good!!!" All the while bangin the stick on the desks. I bet that would get you a good grade. CK
hahaha...yeah. i was thinkin about BK's thing and how it would be kinda funny. but then i remembered that the prof said he wanted a serious discussion....
Foreign markets dumping goods to destroy your industries. Cough**Samsung**Cough**Cough. Dependency: If economy isn't diverse enough in products and resources, a change in supply/demand could cause depression. The environment!!! Polluters win in free trade. Guys working hard to run a clean plant will lose. Security. Protectionism will ensure the goods for a strong military are built. The evil Americans will brainwash you with their evil products if you don't restrict them. Brains. Brains. Trade can be used as an economic weapon if controlled.
Major just left one thing out: S-E-C-U-R-I-T-Y There are some industries that are essential to the national security. If conflict every broke out, not having developed these industries independently of trade partners could prove dangerous. Moreover, certain products give the producing nations strategic leverage in negotiations. Steel is certainly such an item. But in the modern era, microchips, etc, also could be included.
