政治经济体制与自由贸易essay范文

发布时间：2016-08-31 06:57

政治经济体制与自由贸易essay/" target="_blank">essay范文
Political And Economic Systems And Free Trade 

自由贸易可以被定义为没有障碍的贸易商品和服务，以及价格自然地通过供求。自由贸易是我们这个时代建立的。它在过去的60年里被西方国家的政府和领导人推动，对所有人都是有益的，事实上，富人变得更富，穷人变得更穷了。自由贸易有几个特点，，如贸易货物没有障碍，例如税收或关税，配额或补贴。在自由贸易中，没有更多的政策扭曲了贸易，给一家公司一个不公平的优势超过另一家公司。自由贸易也有一个自由进入交易市场和市场信息。此外，自由贸易也有一个自由流动的工人和工人的国家之间，也是一个自由运动的国会内部和国家之间的国家之间的自由贸易。在理论上，自由贸易被认为是一种方法来打破国家之间的壁垒，消除税收和允许价格自然是通过设置“供给与需求”和给予机会的贫穷国家专门生产商品是适合他们的环境，喜欢咖啡、可可豆等的能力销售这些商品的西方世界，能买回来的商品，他们也许没有在本国生产能力。在现实中，唯一真正能从自由贸易中获益的人是全球精英，控制着国际贸易，并试图控制整个世界。那些拥有丰富的自然资源的国家，如非洲和阿拉伯的钻石和石油的国家，实际上发展得比那些没有这种商品的国家的速度要慢得多。在现实中，这也意味着此前成功在西方世界的制造业已经无法在亚洲和其他地方付出的血汗工厂的工资水平竞争，并且在这些血汗工厂的工人必须不断降低价格以在世界市场上的竞争力。因此，行业和许多国家制造业下滑的市场上充斥着廉价的仿制品。

INTRODUCTION 简介

Free trade can be defined as the ability to trade goods and services without barriers, and for prices to rise naturally through supply and demand. Free trade is one of the single most emotive subjects of our times. It is pushed by governments and leaders of the western world over the last 60 years or so, to be beneficial to all, in fact, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Free trade has a several features like the ability to trade goods without barriers, for example taxes or tariffs, quotas or subsidies. In free trade there have no more policies which distort the trade, giving one company an unfair advantage over another. Free trade also has a free access towards trading markets and market information. Besides, free trade also has a free movement of labor and workers within and between countries and also a free movement of capitol within and between countries. In theory, free trade was heralded as a way to break down the barriers between countries, banishing taxes and allowing prices to be naturally set through "supply and demand" and giving the opportunity for poorer countries to specialize in the production of goods which are appropriate to their environment likes coffee, cocoa beans and so on with the capacity to sell these goods to the western world and be able to buy back the goods which they maybe do not have the ability to produce in their home countries. In reality, the only people who really stand to benefit from free trade are the global elite, controlling international trade and seeking to control the entire world. Countries which were rich in natural resources like African and Arab nations with diamonds and oil, actually developed at a much slower rate than the nations who did not have such a commodity. In reality, it has also meant that previously profitable and successful manufacturing in the western world has been unable to compete with the sweatshop wages paid in Asia and other places, and that the workers in these sweatshops must consistently cut their prices in order to be competitive in the world market. So, industry and manufacturing declinesin many countries as the markets are flooded with cheap imitations from exploited workers. It is human nature to shop in the cheapest stores and to buy the cheapest goods without a thought for the actual slave labor which was used to produce such goods. Trying to save a buck here and there is important, especially in these extremely difficult economic times when we are all just trying to survive, but it is important to spare a thought for the thousands of workers squatting in sweat shops around the world, and barely earning enough to eat or feed their families.
We all know that there is free trade in the world, not in all parts but certainly in some. Free trade has been around for quite some time. Every country at one time or another has engaged in trade. It is essential for a nation to not only survive but to prosper. But before it was called free trade it had another name, and that was mercantilism that began in Europe in the 1500s. Even in the inception of free trade there were those that had their doubts about it. The economists during that time that believed in it believed trade was the reason why civilizations prospered economically. Adam Smith though that trade was the reason for the flourishing and not just the Egypt and Greece but also China. The Netherlands had seen great growth and it only came after they said goodbye to Spanish involvement and opened up their own free trade lines. Free trade as a whole has always been in direct opposition in one way or another to communist, populist, and protectionist policies. There have been wars fought over the idea of the trade. One of the examples is Athens and Sparta. The China and Great Britain Opium Wars have been fought over the idea of free trade. Many liberals in the United States in particular believed that free trade was one of the key components of peace. John Maynard Keynes believes that free trade was great combined with domestic policies that promoted employment. Basically what Keynes meant was that it was a good idea to have free trade as long as it was being used as a way to promote employment in your own country. This way you were giving back to your own people. The fact is that since free trade came about some centuries ago it has been a long standing hot button issue and one that would be certain to continue today as it splits the political parties. Now, the question is, is the free trade benefits all states all the time?

MERCANTILISM AND FREE TRADE 重商主义和自由贸易

Mercantilism is a political and economic system that arose in the 17th and 18th centuries. It purports that a country's economic strength is directly related to the maintenance of a positive balance of trade. In order to remain economically and politically viable, a country must export more than it imports. Such a positive balance of trade, according to mercantilist thought, results in a surplus of gold in the practicing country's treasury. Although not a proponent of mercantilism, noted 18th century Scottish economist Adam Smith (1723-1790) was responsible for coining the term "mercantile system". Mercantilism was in opposition to Smith's concepts of free trade, free enterprise, and the free movement of people and goods. In other words, it went against the precepts of a laissez-faire economy. One of the key assertions of mercantilism is that national wealth will come through the import and accumulation of gold or other precious metals such as silver. Smith was highly critical of this theory of wealth and he clearly understood the class bias in the merchant system that supported it. In fact, Smith expressed great concern about colonialism and the monopoly trade routes instituted by the merchant class, which often worked against the economic interests of the citizenry. Mercantilism as an economic system is generally held in low regard today. Japan, however, with its structural barriers to foreign competition and its discouragement of foreign direct investment has been accused of practicing a late 20th century form of mercantilism. Mercantilism as a historical period has been associated with the rise of a particular form of European capitalism often referred to as merchant capitalism. Mercantilism was also a doctrine advanced by various economic writers of the period, who tended to call for a powerful alliance between merchants and the monarchial system, which was then in decline. The term mercantilism is often used today to describe protectionist trade policies which, when coupled with other government policies, directly or indirectly subsidize particular industries in order to gain national or regional trade advantage. Japan, as stated above, is a late 20th century example of such policies. Mercantilism has thus come to be associated with nationalistic economic policies and is shunned by free trade advocates who argue for minimal state interference in the domestic and international marketplace.
Mercantilism played an important but not necessarily dominant role in the transition from feudalism to industrial capitalism. Mercantilism, however, did greatly benefit large merchant enterprises such as the British East India Company, which shipped home goods over trade routes protected and maintained by the state. Foreign trade was thought to be necessary for the accumulation of gold because domestic trade could not generate a net surplus or profit. Armed with this view of the origin of profits, merchants promoted exports as a necessary means of gaining surplus profits. Like all good policy makers, the merchants argued that this policy would in turn benefit the state as a whole. During the mercantilist period, merchants controlled the trading system but not the production of goods and services. Before the advent of industrial capitalism, production was along the line of a crafts system, which embodied remnants of the old feudal order. As industrial capitalism emerged the power of the merchant class declined. Merchants would eventually come to see that taking over or being more involved in the means of production would enhance their profits by giving them control over the productivity of labor. For the most part, however, merchants did not control the means of production, as their primary concern was buying and selling. Mercantilist policies encouraged the importation of raw materials, which in turn could be manufactured into various products. Now carrying an added value, these finished goods could subsequently be exported and sold for a high price relative to their original cost. Thus would gold ultimately find its way to the nation's treasury. The rise of the mercantile system coincided with the beginnings of capitalism in 16th and 17th century Europe. By this time Spain, France, and the low countries of Belgium and Holland had been transformed into merchant-dominated economies. Concurrently, modern nation-states were emerging as a political complement of the merchant economy. It was this coalition of merchants and monarchs that eventually led to the dissolution of the old feudal order. A system evolved that was instead regulated by a competitive labor market. This led to the eventual formation of a class of people who found themselves free from feudal ties to the land only to be forced to sell their labor in order to ensure subsistence. Also emerging was a class of industrial and manufacturing entrepreneurs who were "recruited" from the now declining merchant class.
The merchant class eventually gave way and lost control of the new economic order to the emerging forces of capitalist competition where price and profits were regulated by the production and accumulation of capital. While trading was essential to the emerging industrial capitalist system, transactions were seen as merely a sharing out of the total selling price among the buyers and purchasers, including the merchant. The mercantile idea that trade led to profits for the system as a whole gave way to the classical economist's view that production and the reinvestment of profit was the true source of a nation's wealth. In addition to the shift in focus from trading to production, the new social and economic dynamic of capital accumulation, in turn, led to devastating critiques of the mercantilist doctrine by English classical economists, such as Adam Smith, and the French Physiocrats. Mercantilist doctrine was pushed aside by the doctrine of comparative advantage which enshrined the idea that free and open trade would be the most beneficial system for all who participate. Most representative of mercantilist writings were the French and English writers of the 17th century. These eminently practical thinkers sought the order, protection, and stability that was essential for the expansion of their activities, which in turn would benefit the state. In exchange for military protection of their trading routes, they often succeeded in gaining monopolistic subsidization from the crown while the state expanded its material means for colonization. Wealth accrued to both the state and the merchant elite in the form of gold and various raw materials to which value could be added and then exported in the form of finished goods. Mercantilists viewed production as being important only in so far as it led to an export surplus. In terms of its historical influence, mercantilist policy accelerated the breakup of the feudal economy and the guild crafts system of production. State policy and the merchant system complemented one another. The main objective was to foster growth of foreign trade along with shipping and export industries such as textiles while encouraging the inflow of precious metals and raw materials to which value could be added for export. Mercantilism thus served to accelerate the transition of Europe from a land-based economy to a monetary economy.

LIBERALISM AND FREE TRADE 自由主义与自由贸易

Liberalism is an economic and political doctrine advocating free enterprise, free competition and free will. Opposed to statism and socialism, it has its roots in the Western Age of Enlightenment. Because of its wide acceptance in modern Western world, it influences many political movements. Liberalism developed along two paths such as political and economic. Political liberalism focused on the concept of government by consent. It derived its name from the Liberales of Spain who drew up their 1812 constitution in opposition of the arbitrary powers of the Spanish monarchy. Economic liberalism focused on the concept of free trade, and on the associated doctrine of laissez-faire, which opposed protectionism or government interference in economic affairs. It stressed the rights of men to engage in commerce without undue interference. It energies were directed at one hand to dismantling barriers which had proliferated within and between countries and on the other to battling against collectivist organization, from the Ancient guilds to the new trade unions.
Economic liberalism is the notion that markets are the most efficient means of allocating capital and resources. Furthermore, economic liberalism invokes the credo in favor of individual liberty espoused by Thomas Payne in his Rights of Man, namely that government is best which governs least. Embodying free trade, economic liberalism allows, more comprehensively, the freedom of capital, goods, and services to move most freely across borders with limited intervention of governments. Capital controls are minimal, foreign credit is widely available, capital account convertibility is provided, and direct investment is facilitated. Some scholars cite the Hegelian concept that history is rooted in consciousness and that economic liberalism is a necessary precondition for political liberalism. This contention is verified empirically in post-Soviet Eastern Europe where economic liberalization has paved the way for democratic development. Contrarily, this contention is empirically overturned in South East Asia where economic liberalization has not historically engendered democratic success. In Singapore, Lee Kwan Yew consolidated his authoritarian city-state under a liberalized economy, and in 1978 Deng Xiaoping followed by example in economically liberalizing a Communist China that, to this day, is politically illiberal.
Economic liberalism will not necessarily have a causal relationship with further democratic development. One could argue that economic illiberalism could have a greater impact in helping create conditions for democratic development. Western states have argued for liberal trade engagement, arguably helping developing states leverage their comparative advantages to export goods to an expanded market. In South Korea, however, comparative advantage in producing rice at one time limited the extent to which they could gain export diversification. Only by pursuing illiberal trade policies, exporting goods but allowing its domestic industry to flourish by restricting imports, was South Korea able to foster industry agglomeration, improved efficiency, reduced costs of production, and altered terms of trade that gave them comparative advantage in producing higher-value final goods -not rice. In South Korea, illiberal economic policies were perhaps a permissive cause of their economic and perhaps democratic success. In the case of democracies interacting through international trade regimes, to the extent that democracy is politically liberal, it will largely be economically liberal due to overlap between political and economic rights. For example, the political rights of the individual, as protected under liberal democracy, include the Lockean economic right to personal property.
However, to believe that liberal democracy will necessarily lead to economic liberalism is false. In fact, under specific property circumstances these two forms of liberalism can be at odds, even mutually exclusive. For example, a politically liberal democracy guarantees the protection of property rights, but in the case of ideas, intellectual property is a political right and an economically illiberal policy. Patents are politically liberal because they protect individual ideas as "intellectual property" but economically illiberal in that they guarantee a temporary monopoly in an attempt to protect property and incentivize creativity. In liberal democracies, elements of economic illiberalism should exist to protect individual rights, and this will necessarily impact international trade. Underlying political institutions therefore necessarily impact those international bodies that arbitrate agreements on international trade. The World Trade Organization, as transitioned from GATT in 1995, will create agreements by consensus that then requires national ratification. An increased proliferation of democracy especially illiberal democracy and it will create institutions wherein the private interests of an uninformed and selfish majority could make citizen demands requiring illiberal trade policies that are protectionist and counter-productive. Enhanced global trade will require not only a central body that allows free transmission of ideas, but also that each constituent regime promotes politically liberal policies that countermand their myopic trade policies forced by a tyranny of the majority that scholars of antiquity most feared in democracy.

本文编号：106426