3 ms·

What you're describing now is essentially ISDS, not what I'm proposing. First, the only way the US (or any other country) can "imprison" foreign individuals is

by tomp 10y ago

What you're describing now is essentially ISDS, not what I'm proposing. First, the only way the US (or any other country) can "imprison" foreign individuals is if other countries agree to enforce its laws - something I don't support, but accept that it will inevitably happen because of military or economic alliances - and is in any case completely democratic. The US can directly only enforce its laws against companies that do business in the US - and the worse possible penalties are either confiscation of the company's assets, or prohibition of doing business in the country - so companies can individually decide whether to abide by US laws and do business in the US, or neither. Second, "economic imperialism" is exactly what ISDS/trade agreements are - a countries' laws can be overruled by arbitrary international courts that have no relationship with the people of said countries. Instead, I'm proposing that countries would freely choose whether to collaborate with other countries or not, and there are many different choices - e.g. UK could choose not to do business with SA, because they discriminate against women, or they could choose to do business with SA, because they have common military goals, or they could say "we don't care" because they decide that they support international trade despite different value systems.

toufka 10y ago
Interesting. It's unclear to me if it's even possible outside of very rare circumstances that a country would want to cease trade with another country because their laws didn't align well. What would the incentive be to stop illicit or otherwise mutually beneficial trade when one party was conducting part of their trade unfairly? It does seem that the previously mentioned economic imperialism is what the ISDS/trade agreements are, but it's not entirely clear how a more voluntary system would, in the end, be much different. Maybe that kind of homogenization is inevitable if you have well-ruled trade between sovereign entities.

by tomp 10y ago

toufka 10y ago

Interesting. It's unclear to me if it's even possible outside of very rare circumstances that a country would want to cease trade with another country because their laws didn't align well. What would the incentive be to stop illicit or otherwise mutually beneficial trade when one party was conducting part of their trade unfairly? It does seem that the previously mentioned economic imperialism is what the ISDS/trade agreements are, but it's not entirely clear how a more voluntary system would, in the end, be much different. Maybe that kind of homogenization is inevitable if you have well-ruled trade between sovereign entities.