Customer Reviews

Myths of Free Trade: Why American Trade Policy Has Failed

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What's in a word? Plenty, when that word is the adjective "free" in front of the noun "trade." The positive connotations of "free" have clouded the debate between free traders and those wanting to protect specific U.S. industries through regulation of foreign imports.

In "Myths of Free Trade," U.S. Rep. Sher rod Brown, the Lorain Demo crat, puts to work the con siderable knowledge he has gained through his efforts on the House subcommittee on commerce, trade and consumer protection to make his argument against untrammeled free trade.

He maintains that he is on the side of the angels, and that the mass public supports his views, no matter how often political and media elites label him an extremist know-nothing.

If leaders of our institutions would take the time to listen to people who work with their hands, they might learn something about the reasons for workers' anxiety, about the hopelessness with which many look to the future, and about social justice," Brown writes. "And they would see that unregulated free trade hurts more people than it helps - not only in the United States, but throughout the world."

Brown argues that an unregulated global economy does not automatically operate efficiently according to some magic formula of American capitalism. He goes further to say that the harm of free trade outweighs any benefits.

Those harmed include a Cleveland-area child "who eats raspberries grown in Guatemala by poorly paid farmers who use pesticides banned in the United States; the unskilled, minimum-wage worker in Los Angeles who loses her job to an unskilled, five-dollar-a-day worker in Yucatan; the machinist in New York who takes a wage cut because of his company's threat to move to China and the Chinese prison camp laborer; the tomato grower in Florida who has to sell his farm; and the peasant in Chiapas who must flee the native village where his family had made its home for dozens of generations."

Brown criticizes both political parties for what he sees as blindness to the facts and wonders about the gullibility of presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, about economics professors, about journalists and about his colleagues in Congress.

Wondering about so many allegedly misguided souls, Brown can sound self-righteous at times. That tone, however, is ameliorated by the quality of his evidence. He might not be correct in some cosmic sense, and he might not convert anybody already on the other side of the debate. But his examples are plausible and well-presented.

"Our political leaders support - and excuse - authoritarian leaders in China and Indonesia because our corporate leaders have identified these totalitarian societies as ideal places to invest and reap huge profits, almost always selling back into the U.S. market the goods that slave labor or underpaid workers produce," he writes. "Big business has ignored or put aside Chinese human rights abuses, security threats, theft of intellectual property and loss of American jobs."

Trade policy is a hot-button issue when jobs come or go because of it. It is difficult, though, to explain the ideas undergirding trade policy. Here, Brown delivers information about an issue usually under the media radar.

This is a tremendously informative and well written book. Short and to the point and in a language that anybody can understand, it should be required reading for anyone vaguely interested in the economic future of America and, indeed, the whole world.
Mr. Brown's book is not a populist war cry but a sensible and well reasoned debunking of all the "free trade" rhetoric one normally hears.
One warning: This book may well leave the reader angry with the status quo!

Brown,a Democrat and a liberal,has written a very good book on the severe deficiencies(for instance,the vast number of workers ,who obtain jobs in second and third world countries as a result of outsourcing and globalization, are paid incomes that are far too small to buy any American exports at all.The result is the creation of additional excess supply and decreases in the standard of living everywhere brought on by deficiencies in aggregate purchasing power)that exist as a result of globalization.The same deficiencies were noted by Ross Perot in three books written in 1992,by Pat Buchanan in 1998 in his "The Great Betrayal",and by Lou Dobbs in his recent "Exporting America:How Corporate Greed is Shipping American Jobs Overseas".All three are authentic conservatives who have broken with a Republican party establishment that has,since 1978, substituted the libertarian anarchist globalization arguments of Grover Norquist,Murray Rothbard,Milton Friedman,Ayn Rynd,Ludwig von Mises,Fredrich von Hayek,Arthur Laffer,and George Gilder for those of conservatives such as Adam Smith,David Ricardo,George Washington,Alexander Hamilton,Douglas MacArthur,Dwight D Eisenhower,and ,yes,Richard Nixon.Unfortunately,the title of the book was poorly chosen.There is a sound and valid free trade position that opposes the special interests of oligopolistic industries.A better title for the book would have been"Globalization is not Free Trade:The Myth of Globalization".Authentic free trade is based on comparative advantage,not the absolute advantage that is the foundation of the libertarian anarchist argument for globalization.Unfortunately,B does not deal with the fact that Smith and Ricardo would be opponents of globalization(Only Dobbs mentions this fact).Globalization is not free trade,as free trade is automatically defined within the context of the theory of comparative advantage.It is of vital importance that anyone concerned about the misrepresentation of the authentic free trade position read Part IV, chapter II,pp.420-440 of The Wealth of Nations.For instance,Smith is opposed to tariffs (and quotas)only if it is the case that the purpose of the tariff is purely protectionist(sought by a special interest group of oligopolistic manufacturers)in nature.Smith would support retaliatory tariffs against countries engaging in obvious protectionist behavior,such as violations of GATT,manipulation of international currency values and/or massive dumping,such as China,India,and Mexico, as long as there is some probability that the counter tariff"...will procure the repeal of the high duties or prohibitions complained of"(Smith,p.435,Modern Library edition).Only if there is no probability of getting the offending country to stop its behavior would Smith forgo retaliation.Finally,Smith is a moderate supporter of the revenue tariff,on balance. He imposed such tariffs when he became a customs official in Scotland.We can end this review by taking Jack Kemp as an example of a conservative who has been completely misled/confused by the substitution of the libertarian,athiest,anarchist arguments of the two von's,Mises and Hayek,for the moral,conservative,deist arguments of Adam Smith.Libertarian Anarchism has nothing to do with conservatism.These philosophies are completely opposed on political,social, and economic grounds.This was the case at the beginnings of our Republic.Washington,Hamilton,Madison,Jay,Franklin,and Adams are the conservatives.Mason,Randolph,Henry,and Paine are the libertarians.

Sen. Brown has given an unblinking look at the way rich countries abuse poor countries. This is the only book-length treatment of this injustice I've seen. He deals with the causes of the poverty in the poor countries, and how to deal with them.

Treating the symptoms by sending handouts to support our agriculture iindustry is scandalous.

Karl Hess

Sherrod Brown has written in plain English an easy-to-understand explanation
of the myths that the American public has been spoon-fed on free trade by the usual suspects, those who profit by it,their lackeys and errand boys, and the editorial pages of the daily newspapers. Brown lays it all out in a book that is filled with common sense and clear-headed analysis.

If this book had as much evidence and proof as it does assertions and assumptions then it would be at least respectable. This book is similar to Jagdish Bhagwati's "In Defense of Globalization" simply because they both use little to no actual evidence and both make broad sweeping claims that fall well outside the realm of what they have attempted to prove (despite both books arguing against one another). For example "Myhts of Free Trade" has 8 chapters, each with a title that sums up the thrust of each chapter. However, Brown then goes into detail about how great his battles have been on capitol hill and fighting against the evils of the Bush administration, and Multinational corporations. But he offers few statistics, little data, but lots of out of context quotations. He will imply that a piece of legislation because "it hurts the steel industry" ,for example, without ever telling us how it hurts the steel industry or proving that it does in fact hurt the steel industry, or even showing us evidence that it could hurt the steel industry beyond implying that the U.S. steel industry faces "unfair" foreign steel manufacturing. In chapter 2 he tries to persuade the reader that free trade is not linked with the war on terrorism, a claim that I thought would be easy enough to prove, but he relies on simple assertions that it is not correlated, but no proof, then goes on to discussion authorization of fast track authority and the showdown between Democrats and Republicans.
Clearly Senator Brown has not written this book for mass consumption, but rather rather for his target audience, the Union workers, environmentalists, human rights audience and the rest of the anti-free trade crowd. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, But don't take this book too seriously, if you're looking for a good solid critique of free trade in the modern era, don't bother buying this book.

On the other hand if you want to buy a book that reinforces your opinion that republicans and free trade generally are bad (along with the corporations, WTO, IMF, World Bank) then by all means buy this book.

Personally, I find this book insufferable not only because of the lack of actual evidence, but also because all Senator Brown talks about is his time in congress and how much of a crusader he is for anti-free trade legislation and view points. After all who doesn't enjoy reading about the individual battles of the house of representatives from a democrat under a republican majority? I mean if he's a Senator he is clearly smart, and if he wrote a book he must know what he is talking about, so why should we question what he says?

I honestly read this book with an open mind but found that Brown makes many mistakes usual for someone without an education in economics or another applicable business area. If you are someone with a background in economics, skip this book. It will not make much sense unless you are a socialist, communist, or have fallen for the usual "jobs shipped over seas" myth.

Congressperson Sherrod Brown (D-OH) is another Yale alumni (think Bush, Kerry, Porter Goss,& Bob Woodward) with a degree in Russian Studies who is currently running against Republican Mike DeWine for DeWine's seat as U.S. Senator. DeWine, an unCatholic avid supporter of Adolf Bush and global Nazism, is facing a challenger whose support comes from Labor as well corporations. Brown's challenge is the most serious among the challengers from other parties - the Democrats, Libertarians and Greens - seeking to unseat the statist DeWine and retrieve Ohio from America's slide down the slippery slope to Nazi Germany.

This book was no doubt ghost-written by Brown's interns rather than his journalist wife Connie Schultz - it has no bibliography. It does have an index. But that's as far as it goes in trying to be a real book. It's more like a rant in the genre of Lou Dobbs, although like a Jehovah's Witness book, it will cite a source within the text minus the page number it came from: "The distinguished American economist John Kenneth Galbraith said about the 'Wealth of Nations', 'It is much celebrated by the ministry of the righteous right, few of whom have read it. Were they to do so - disapproval of the corporate form, approval of a wealth tax - they would be greatly shocked'". That's it. No page number. I could go to Galbraith's book, then where to look? I hope Galbraith's book has an index, then I could at least look up the pages on which Adam Smith is cited. Then perhaps I can find this quote and see what else Galbraith had to say on the topic.

That said, this book begins with a four and half-paged 'Introduction' followed by seven chapters titled 'Myth 1: Americans Believe in Free Trade', 'Myth 2: Free-Trade Agreements Are Necessary to Fight the War on [Freedom]', 'Myth 3: Free Trade Is an Extension of American Values Abroad', 'Myth 4: Free Trade Leaves Most People Better Off - In Rich and Poor Nations Alike', 'Myth 5: Free Trade Will Bring Democracy, Human Rights, and Freedom to Authoritarian Nations', 'Myth 6: The North American Free Trade Agreement Has Been a Success', and 'Myth 7: Free Trade Is a Great American Tradition'. Chapter eight is titled 'A Model for Fair Trade and a Call to Action'.

Brown is confused over the term "free trade". When corporatists use that term to describe their economic fascism, Brown uses that term too rather than "economic fascism". In fact, the two terms are dichotomies. But by ignoring the creation of the corporation by the State and its resulting status as offspring of the state - thereby just as inefficient and bureaucratic as its parent, Brown is telling only half the story. The problem is corporations AND its parent - the State.

As Adam Smith knew well - in a free market, there are no corporations; corporations are creations of the state - they are "artificial persons" that are granted Constitutional rights by its parent. The problem is NOT free trade, which is not practiced anywhere on this planet - but corporatism camouflaging itself under the false rhetoric of free trade. This state-generated problem is one I hope Brown will address as a Congressperson. This book should sit on one's shelf beside a copy of Paul H. Weaver's "The Suicidal Corporation". And I wish Brown good fortune in unseating the Nazi-American in his Senatorial race. But don't be the other side of the same coin.