Reply #40: Free-traders, much like the supply-siders tend to selectively apply

[54anickel]

economic theory and principals to suit their wishes. They tend to acknowledge there is a difference between free and fair trade, they just scream "free-markets, free markets - let the markets decide!" They tend to use the comparative advantage theory to support their argument, but I don't think labor was considered back when that theory came about. IMHO, what we have going on today in this "global market" is neither free nor fair. It seems more like a lop-sided deal that exploits developing nations for the almightly buck.

Henry Liu sums it up pretty nicely:

The quest to profit from the lowest wages through cross-border wage arbitrage has been the driving force behind trade globalization, reducing trade from a process of gaining comparative advantage between trading economies to one of reinforcing absolute advantage for capital at the expense of labor for the benefit of global capital denominated in dollars.

http://henryckliu.com/page38.html