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I'm ambivalent about free trade in general, and I tend to agree with the issues people have with TPP in particular, but I did want to address this sentiment: >

I'm ambivalent about free trade in general, and I tend to agree with the issues people have with TPP in particular, but I did want to address this sentiment: > Globalisation is happening regardless of whether people want it or not. Why? Globalization is a product of human behavior and human choices. Neither sunspots, cosmic rays, hurricanes, or earthquakes make globalization happen. It seems absurd, to me, to pretend that globalization is this Force beyond our control, that we just have to adapt or die. That isn't so. Globalization has gone on in the world because we, including and especially the United States of America, made it happen. The governing and business elite has chosen time and again to pursue globalization policies because it seemed like the right thing to do economically and often because it benefited them. We can choose to enact different policies and go in a different direction any time we want, and even pro-free trade economists like Krugman concede that the consequences will not be particularly dire (see his Brexit commentary.)

godelski 10y ago
I do think it is a natural progression. Even China and NK can't be isolationists. And it isn't just because the US. There are a lot of advantages of working together. This is expansion through economic, as opposed to through territory. To be an isolationist is significantly more difficult because you have to do everything yourself. The bigger you are territorial and population wise (note Russia's problem here), the easier it is. But if you are smaller you just don't have access to all the resources and labor that you need to advance. Unless your goal is to stagnate, but I don't think that is in our nature. Actually the advantage of expansion through economics, as opposed to territory, is that you don't have to rule. Now there are trade agreements that are made, but those are much easier to renegotiate (brexit) than law of the land. Let them hash it out. Territorial expansion has the problem that your population becomes more diverse and a different set of cultures wants to abide by different laws. The purpose of territorial expansion is to gain more power and wealth. But it also generally leads to wars being waged. Now this happens with economics too, but not to the same degree. It is just much simpler to just trade. There's a lot that goes into this and I'm not going to write a book in a HN post. But I do think that if another country was in power they would be doing the expansion, in place of America. That it is a natural progression if you look over a long period of history. Starting from just taking what we want to developing allies and trade routes. Globalization really is just a natural progression of what we've been doing for thousands of years.
- Amezarak 10y ago
  The absence of free trade and isolationism are not the same thing at all. We were still trading with Mexico before NAFTA.
  - godelski 10y ago
    TPP isn't free trade. We're talking globalization. Not free trade. You're either not reading what I'm saying or not understanding that globalization does not equate to free trade. Help me out here, what are you missing? We trade with Mexico because we want to. NAFTA is just terms we set.

godelski 10y ago

I do think it is a natural progression. Even China and NK can't be isolationists. And it isn't just because the US. There are a lot of advantages of working together. This is expansion through economic, as opposed to through territory. To be an isolationist is significantly more difficult because you have to do everything yourself. The bigger you are territorial and population wise (note Russia's problem here), the easier it is. But if you are smaller you just don't have access to all the resources and labor that you need to advance. Unless your goal is to stagnate, but I don't think that is in our nature. Actually the advantage of expansion through economics, as opposed to territory, is that you don't have to rule. Now there are trade agreements that are made, but those are much easier to renegotiate (brexit) than law of the land. Let them hash it out. Territorial expansion has the problem that your population becomes more diverse and a different set of cultures wants to abide by different laws. The purpose of territorial expansion is to gain more power and wealth. But it also generally leads to wars being waged. Now this happens with economics too, but not to the same degree. It is just much simpler to just trade. There's a lot that goes into this and I'm not going to write a book in a HN post. But I do think that if another country was in power they would be doing the expansion, in place of America. That it is a natural progression if you look over a long period of history. Starting from just taking what we want to developing allies and trade routes. Globalization really is just a natural progression of what we've been doing for thousands of years.

Amezarak 10y ago
The absence of free trade and isolationism are not the same thing at all. We were still trading with Mexico before NAFTA.
- godelski 10y ago
  TPP isn't free trade. We're talking globalization. Not free trade. You're either not reading what I'm saying or not understanding that globalization does not equate to free trade. Help me out here, what are you missing? We trade with Mexico because we want to. NAFTA is just terms we set.