armati wrote:@duk
"f.e.e. wrote:
Using these dyad-years, McDonald analyzed the behavior of every country in the world for the past 40 years. His analysis showed a negative correlation between free trade and conflict: The more freely a country trades, the fewer wars it engages in. Countries that engage in free trade are less likely to invade and less likely to be invaded."
I guess he didnt look at the U.S., I mean, the U.S. has lots of free trade deals dont they?
Actually, the U.S. has a strong protectionist lobby and enters free trade deals very reluctantly. Even when it does (NAFTA, for instance) it insists on a multitude of caveats and exceptions so the deal ends up like something like "mostly free trade, much of the time, but not in all categories and not all the time."
The ram wrote:Got to be honest I read 8 words of that and got the feeling it was a survey of some left wing twat with more reasons to dehumanize a nation for the promise of a few quid
Pretty funny. F.E.E. are generally criticized as right-wing twats, but nonetheless....
How do you feel it dehumanizes people to bring them prosperity? Do you feel poverty is some kind of virtue? I'm assuming you're some rich asshole who sits in his mansion puffing a Havana and moralizing about how work builds character. Interesting how most people who preach about the virtues of struggling have never had to do so.
As an Englishman you should at least be familiar with the history of the Anti-Corn Law League and how it brought your country from a state of endemic starvation to a state of cheap food for all.
For more modern examples, liberalized trade between East and West helped give people in the Soviet bloc a taste for wealth and brought down the Soviet empire.
Today, liberalized trade between Europe and Iran is helping to build a prosperous middle class in Iran, which will eventually lead to the extinction of Iran's medieval theocracy and a secular humanist society there.