{"id":67700,"date":"2017-07-09T21:34:01","date_gmt":"2017-07-10T03:34:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=67700"},"modified":"2017-07-09T14:22:15","modified_gmt":"2017-07-09T21:22:15","slug":"free-trade-and-open-markets-have-worsened-the-plight-of-the-poor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/07\/09\/free-trade-and-open-markets-have-worsened-the-plight-of-the-poor\/","title":{"rendered":"Free Trade and Open Markets have worsened the plight of the poor."},"content":{"rendered":"

R Chandrasoma<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

As part of the prevailing capitalist philosophy, the notion of nations trading freely in goods and services is seen as the panacea for all the economic ills that beset mankind. If we look around the world, do we not see a marked increase in material prosperity at all social levels in most countries of the world? This is the argument trotted out by the defenders of the so-called \u2018Free World\u2019. That there have been vast social changes worldwide following the expansion of global trade is not contested. This expansion has made life potentially richer but at a social cost \u2013 an elite has climbed to new heights of material prosperity while the vast majority is enslaved to a system that operates not for its benefit but for the prosperity rich capitalist elites. In recent years some countries \u2013 forced devotees of the open market and trading freely in the good things that Nature had bestowed on them \u2013 have failed spectacularly while the Big Capitalists thrive on the misery of the deceived. As an example of this double-play by the rich, take the case of Venezuela \u2013 a once prosperous country now struggling to feed a population near starvation. A more telling example is the misery and starvation that engulfs most parts of Africa \u2013 once rich in resources but sadly ripped of its resources by the \u2018open markets\u2019 and \u2018free trade\u2019 forced on them by the white skinned foreigners who manipulate the market and harvest the richness that rightly belongs to the people of this benighted continent.<\/p>\n

It is not necessary to overstate the case \u2013 that great champion of Free Trade and Open Markets \u2013 the USA – is now the victim of its own cleverness. American trade is now in the hands of bankers and capitalists who find it better to tie hands with aliens in distant lands than to invest in native ventures that directly benefit the people. They see such people-oriented investment as an inefficient use of resources – as their cherished goal is to make money – not the amelioration of social ill. The spectacular result is near extinction of heavy \u2013industry in the USA and the catastrophic loss of jobs for the ordinary citizen while the big companies rake in the profits from investments overseas. The New President \u2013 Donald Trump \u2013 has his weaknesses but he is dead right when he sees unfettered international trade as the root cause of the economic decline of the USA.<\/p>\n

There is a lesson here for the people of Sri Lanka. We have the current leader of economic thinking in Sri Lanka \u2013 Mr Ranil Wikramasingha \u2013 as an open and fervent advocate of foreign capital investment in Sri Lanka. He sees this investment as the key to the resolution of the poverty and economic bankruptcy that supposedly assails our poor nation. In the light of what we have said above, any capitalist investing money in this country will do so to make more money \u2013 not to help a struggling economy to regather strength. Indeed, the very purpose of such investment is to create global monopolies that reduce most poor countries such as Sri Lanka into clients states that provide\u00a0 cheap labour and captive markets. In this larger sense, the agenda that Mr RW and his political friends that advocate is the direct route not only to economic thralldom but also \u2013 more disastrously \u2013 to a loss of national identity with the economic overlord calling the shots while true independence withers.<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

R Chandrasoma As part of the prevailing capitalist philosophy, the notion of nations trading freely in goods and services is seen as the panacea for all the economic ills that beset mankind. If we look around the world, do we not see a marked increase in material prosperity at all social levels in most countries […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-r-chandrasoma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67700\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}