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Benton D Struckcheon

(2,347 posts)
7. On balance, NAFTA would be bad, but not for any reason that would be presented here.
Thu Dec 19, 2013, 07:19 PM
Dec 2013

First of all, citing Adam Smith, of all people, in a thread like this is nuts. The Wealth of Nations, properly understood, is a long and extremely detailed refutation of the idea that restricting trade between nations leads to anything but poverty.
Like Isaac Newton, Smith's book is limited, because the horizons he wrote about were limited, for the most part, to Europe, and to European nations that were roughly in the same stage of development. He did have some excellent insights into why China, for instance, which at his time was still by far the largest economy on the planet, wasn't also the richest. But that's an outstanding exception to the general rule: his book was correct that free trade between nations that are in the same stage of development with each other is good, but between nations that are at different stages is bad.
Mexico is pretty obviously not equal to the US in terms of its development, and so free trade between the two simply isn't possible, not because of any disadvantage to the US, but because of its overwhelming disadvantage to Mexico.
This thread reeks of US-centric privilege.

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