Nick Schultz has a good (if short) piece in NRO on why environmentalist groups are the enemies of the poor. NGOs like Greenpeace care more about their own ideology and funding than they do about people – and their actions against free trade for Africa reflect this.
No Friends Of The Poor
Published
Yes- but would free trade with Africa be real free trade, or just more opportunities to exploit near-slave labor and environmental loopholes? Until we can make laws asserting that employees in other countries have to be given the same sort of wages and benefits that their counterparts in the US have, there will be no real progress- just continued exploitation.
Don’t get me wrong, I support free trade- but free trade has to be equal.
Except such a rule would be impossible to enforce. Businesses in the Third World could not ever pay their employes the same as they are in the US. That would mean leaving the Third World in the same rut it is stuck in now – unable to sell their goods to the rest of the world and stuck behind a cocoon of international red tape.
It has been conclusively proven in numerous studies that trade liberalization promotes higher environmental standards, better wages, and higher standards of living. It doesn’t do all of these immediately, nor can it. But if we fail to encourage development now, the situation in the Third World will only get worse.
They can’t pay their employees in foreign countries the same wages they pay them here? How so?