Free is the next best thing

Fair trade indeed! And who controls this fair trade? The rich countries? The WTO? Or worst of all, the HPVE*? I'll go into the whole reason why I immensly dislike the United Nations (HPVE) in further posts.

There are of course other reasons for the problems in Africa, such as people like Robert Mugabe, the "President" of Zimbabwe. I do agree of course with the sentiment that the land should be owned by Zimbabweans, but he has chosen the worst way to remedy the problem. The white people knew how to run a farm, and they hired black people to do the job. Robert simply took away the white people and filled the farms up with his soldiers. Soldiers not exactly being experts on how to run farms.

Sorry, off topic. I'll reserve that for later. Anyway those problems are unresolvable by foreign countries, or indeed any kind of trade agreement. But in other countries such as Tanzania, Buhtan, Afghanistan, et cetera, they have the ability to produce things really cheaply compared to the United States, France or Germany. Whereas in the above countries, labour costs a heap.

My reasoning is that with labour being so cheap in Africa (back to the Africa-France thing) and people in France having lots of money, it would make more sense for French manufacturers to build factories in Africa, and hire heaps of cheap labour, and sell the goods back to the rich French people (and other rich people around the world). If their was free trade (and real free trade, as in "easy to set up a business anywhere"), the French would have to make the Africans rich first, then start selling stuff to them. But destroy the African jobs, and they don't have any money to buy your goods.

Of course, it is not very common for companies to act in their own interest. Shareholders are a stupid and fickle lot. They seem to care about "long term investments", but when a company does something, they (the shareholders) always only think of the short term implications. So it would not be a rare thing for a company to ruin an economy by trying to milk as much money from it as possible. However, it would be in a companies best interests to help improve the economies of the countries where its products are sold.

After all, it is in everyones best interests to care about the best interests of others. Of course, if the whole world did that, we'd all be happy, hard-working, well rewarded, healthy and crime-free. But forget it, short of some kind of magic elexir, that is never going to happen. Human beings just aren't capable (think communism). Communism as an ideal should work perfectly, but it just doesn't work. Greedy people always end up at the top of the government, overturning the ideals (but keeping with the communist name) to make themselves better off than the general population.

Democracy works because we are not perfect. Communism could only work if we were all perfect. But if that were the case Anarchy would work also. In fact, even a bad government is better than Anarchy (usually).

So, how does all of this fit in with my idea of free trade? Well. When any barriers are being set up, they are always going to be as much in the favour of the richer countries. Fair trade is impossible to enforce, free trade is the next best thing. Besides, with access to the rich market in France, a really good African entrepeneur could actually set up a vibrant business. If French companies were better able to invest in African business, the Africans may eventually be able to invest in Europe.

Also, I mean completely free trade. I.e. people in Africa can easily get a job in France (even as a labourer). With the money, a wise man would be able to set up a business in Africa on a French minimum wage. If he can make it grow, he could attract investors from France, which would feed more money into the pipeline.

With free trade, and free tourism, French people would be more likely to go on holiday in Africa. More businesses would have to be set up to cater for them. Think Restaurants, Cafes, Motels, Hotels, all sucking up French money, and hiring local African workers. So my opinion still remains firmly with the following paragraph:

In the short term, free trade benefits the poorer countries, and gives negative benefit to richer countries. In the long term, free trade would strongly benefit all countries.

* Do not confuse High Priest Vulture Elite (UN) with the Hewlett Packard VE (HP VE). The acronym clash is merely a coincidence. I think. After all, I did not coin the term.