---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Mon, Mar 2, 2015 at 8:14 AM
Subject: re: Congress’s Critical Role on Trade
To: "letters@nytimes.com"
To the Editor:
Trade is good. As Adam Smith taught us in the 18th century, it is better for one who is good at making pins to make a lot of pins and sell them to someone who is e.g. good at growing coffee rather than for each to dabble inefficiently at all of life's needs. But Trade must never be divorced from environmental and labor law. To import a cheap product whose maker externalizes damage to the planet is not only to undercut his domestic competitor; it is to underwrite that pollution. Likewise, to import the product of slave labor is as repugnant as putting that slave child into a crate and buying her on Amazon.
Trade is good. As Adam Smith taught us in the 18th century, it is better for one who is good at making pins to make a lot of pins and sell them to someone who is e.g. good at growing coffee rather than for each to dabble inefficiently at all of life's needs. But Trade must never be divorced from environmental and labor law. To import a cheap product whose maker externalizes damage to the planet is not only to undercut his domestic competitor; it is to underwrite that pollution. Likewise, to import the product of slave labor is as repugnant as putting that slave child into a crate and buying her on Amazon.
Barry Haskell Levine
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/02/opinion/congresss-critical-role-on-trade.html
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