To: JBTFD who wrote (482009 ) 10/28/2003 12:34:48 AM From: Dan B. Read Replies (1) | Respond to Free Trade would be great. A step toward it like NAFTA ought to be better than nothing, and likely has been in many ways. But when governments through mechanisms like those within NAFTA set rules to enforce static notions of justice in trade, we are no longer witnessing the effects of free trade, but rather the effect of Government Regulation of trade once again. Something screwy has happened too, if a company is able to clean up a mess and isn't allowed to do so(doesn't mean they deserve compensation for not being allowed, even if they could have made money doing it). There is government involvement all the way around in your cases(governmental permissions and subsidies have historically precluded much corporate liability which should be in place in a free market). While I'm not suggesting government should decree corporations have a right to control the water supply as apparently happened in one of those cases you served up, if you are implying that commoditizing something makes it more unavailable to common men, I strongly disagree. Take shoes or computers or etc(and Russians have worried much as you do in general, that turning shoes over to free markets would mean the poor would go barefoot(but free market countries without subsidized shoes proved the poor could have cheaper and better shoes instead, thanks to capitalism).
