It is not unusual for that preeminent publication, The Economist, to laud the lowly potato during the United Nation's “International Year of the Potato.” After all, the simple, inexpensive tuber could assist in alleviating existing and future crises of hunger. After all, what would McDonald's be without French fries?
Adam Smith, essentially the founder of modern economics, is said to have been an admirer and enthusiast of the potato.
Similarly, David Ricardo, writing about his theory of comparative advantage in 1817, noted that “An English labourer would consider his wages … too scanty to support a family, if they enabled him to purchase no other food than potatoes.”
Interestingly, the Irish potato blight of 1845 led to the eventual abolition of the British Corn Laws and the slow establishment of an acceptance of free trade in both political and economic theory and practice.
Nonetheless, it has been more than a hundred fifty years year since David Ricardo formulated the theory of free trade.
It has been merely some fifty years since the establishment of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT).
It has been less than fifteen years since establishment of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993 under Bill Clinton' administration.
Is it mere ignorance of the facts behind free trade that both Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama certainly waffle on the issue of NAFTA during their primary campaigns?
The facts show clearly that, from 1993 to 2005, trade moved from $297 billion to $810 billion, while investment in the three nation partnership rose more than a hundred percent.
United States exports rose more than one hundred thirty three percent.
Industrial production, slightly more than two thirds of which consists of manufacturing, rose forty nine percent.
Most importantly, US jobs rose during the period from 112.2 million in Dec '93 to 134.8 million in February 2006. See USTR. and obtain full details.
Certainly, individual jobs were lost as American production changed, was discontinued, or as companies found less expensive manufacturing or labor overseas. Similar dislocations were experienced throughout history as new technology appeared and replaced both procedures and workers. Such current losses, mainly attributed to China or India, were hardly responsible for NAFTA.
NAFTA should not bear the brunt of cynical or ill-informed politicians to further mislead a woefully ignorant public for the sake of votes.
