SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
"Free" Trade? Fraud Alert
The deceptive branding behind corporatists' preference for the term "free trade" over simply "trade."
Jul 16, 2016
It is rare these days to hear the words "market" and "trade" without the word "free" attached--especially on corporate media. I even hear colleagues who are pursuing a more localized economy use these terms without realizing that by so doing they are subtly and unintentionally promoting a political agenda they oppose.
Words have power, and corporate spin doctors choose them carefully to develop positive emotional associations with their agenda.
The corporatist website Investopedia.com explains what is meant by a free market: "A completely free market is an idealized form of a market economy where buyers and sellers are allowed to transact freely (i.e., buy/sell/trade) based on a mutual agreement on price without state intervention in the form of taxes, subsidies, or regulation." Thus, the term "free market" joins two positive words--freedom and markets--and associates them with the corporatists' ideal of freedom for corporations to maximize short-term profits free from public oversight, taxes, or responsibility for public consequences.
For me, the term "market" evokes the image of a local Saturday morning farmers market like the one where I go to buy fresh produce from my farmer neighbors. Such markets fit perfectly the dictionary definition of a market as "an open place or a covered building where buyers and sellers convene for the sale of goods; a marketplace." These markets feature life-sustaining person-to-person exchange, often while enjoying each other's company and the offerings of food vendors and musicians. These are living markets organized by the people who use them. Most of us love them--and properly so.
The many community markets I have visited around the world are beautiful celebrations of local life and culture, much like street parties. Our Saturday morning farmers market on Bainbridge Island is tiny by comparison with many I've visited. Even so, it draws a vibrant crowd and is an important contributor to building the relationships of trust and caring essential to healthy community function. It is easy to buy into the idea that such markets should be "free" from the heavy hand of government--though, in fact, even these markets have and could not long function without rules, including rules that exclude non-local businesses.
The "free market" of the corporatist ideal is the polar opposite to such community-nourishing living markets. The corporatists' free market is populated and organized by transnational corporations that spurn attachments to people, place, and community. Of course, corporations employ people, but their primary relationship is not to each other. It is to the corporation. And that relationship preempts the direct relationship they might otherwise enjoy with one another and the place they call home.
There is a similar deceptive branding at work in the corporatists' preference for the term "free trade" over simply "trade." For most of us, trade and freedom are both good. "Free trade" connects these associations with the corporatist agenda of trade unconstrained by national boundaries and interests. These set up a positive association with international agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) that are routinely referred to as "free trade" agreements. In fact, they are not about freedom and only indirectly about trade. Filled with thousands of pages of detailed rules, their primary purpose is to strip countries of control of their own borders and transfer that control to global corporations.
Perhaps the most striking "free market" contradiction is that the corporatist neoliberal agenda supports corporate mergers and acquisitions that build concentrations of monopoly power and reduce the market competition that is normally assumed to be a defining feature of a market.
So the next time you hear the term "free market" or "free trade," treat that as a fraud alert. Ask yourself, what are those warm-sounding words trying to sell? And remember, a living Earth economy features living markets, not the "free market," and it engages in fair trade, not "free trade."
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
This article was written for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas and practical actions. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.
David Korten
Dr. David C. Korten is a former Harvard Business School professor, a member of the Club of Rome, a founding member of the Alliance for Ecological Civilization, president of the Living Economies Forum, author of the international best-selling books When Corporations Rule the World; The Post-Corporate World: Life After Capitalism; and The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community; and the white papers “Ecological Civilization” and “Eco-nomics for an Ecological Civilization,” which expand on the concepts presented here.
It is rare these days to hear the words "market" and "trade" without the word "free" attached--especially on corporate media. I even hear colleagues who are pursuing a more localized economy use these terms without realizing that by so doing they are subtly and unintentionally promoting a political agenda they oppose.
Words have power, and corporate spin doctors choose them carefully to develop positive emotional associations with their agenda.
The corporatist website Investopedia.com explains what is meant by a free market: "A completely free market is an idealized form of a market economy where buyers and sellers are allowed to transact freely (i.e., buy/sell/trade) based on a mutual agreement on price without state intervention in the form of taxes, subsidies, or regulation." Thus, the term "free market" joins two positive words--freedom and markets--and associates them with the corporatists' ideal of freedom for corporations to maximize short-term profits free from public oversight, taxes, or responsibility for public consequences.
For me, the term "market" evokes the image of a local Saturday morning farmers market like the one where I go to buy fresh produce from my farmer neighbors. Such markets fit perfectly the dictionary definition of a market as "an open place or a covered building where buyers and sellers convene for the sale of goods; a marketplace." These markets feature life-sustaining person-to-person exchange, often while enjoying each other's company and the offerings of food vendors and musicians. These are living markets organized by the people who use them. Most of us love them--and properly so.
The many community markets I have visited around the world are beautiful celebrations of local life and culture, much like street parties. Our Saturday morning farmers market on Bainbridge Island is tiny by comparison with many I've visited. Even so, it draws a vibrant crowd and is an important contributor to building the relationships of trust and caring essential to healthy community function. It is easy to buy into the idea that such markets should be "free" from the heavy hand of government--though, in fact, even these markets have and could not long function without rules, including rules that exclude non-local businesses.
The "free market" of the corporatist ideal is the polar opposite to such community-nourishing living markets. The corporatists' free market is populated and organized by transnational corporations that spurn attachments to people, place, and community. Of course, corporations employ people, but their primary relationship is not to each other. It is to the corporation. And that relationship preempts the direct relationship they might otherwise enjoy with one another and the place they call home.
There is a similar deceptive branding at work in the corporatists' preference for the term "free trade" over simply "trade." For most of us, trade and freedom are both good. "Free trade" connects these associations with the corporatist agenda of trade unconstrained by national boundaries and interests. These set up a positive association with international agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) that are routinely referred to as "free trade" agreements. In fact, they are not about freedom and only indirectly about trade. Filled with thousands of pages of detailed rules, their primary purpose is to strip countries of control of their own borders and transfer that control to global corporations.
Perhaps the most striking "free market" contradiction is that the corporatist neoliberal agenda supports corporate mergers and acquisitions that build concentrations of monopoly power and reduce the market competition that is normally assumed to be a defining feature of a market.
So the next time you hear the term "free market" or "free trade," treat that as a fraud alert. Ask yourself, what are those warm-sounding words trying to sell? And remember, a living Earth economy features living markets, not the "free market," and it engages in fair trade, not "free trade."
David Korten
Dr. David C. Korten is a former Harvard Business School professor, a member of the Club of Rome, a founding member of the Alliance for Ecological Civilization, president of the Living Economies Forum, author of the international best-selling books When Corporations Rule the World; The Post-Corporate World: Life After Capitalism; and The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community; and the white papers “Ecological Civilization” and “Eco-nomics for an Ecological Civilization,” which expand on the concepts presented here.
It is rare these days to hear the words "market" and "trade" without the word "free" attached--especially on corporate media. I even hear colleagues who are pursuing a more localized economy use these terms without realizing that by so doing they are subtly and unintentionally promoting a political agenda they oppose.
Words have power, and corporate spin doctors choose them carefully to develop positive emotional associations with their agenda.
The corporatist website Investopedia.com explains what is meant by a free market: "A completely free market is an idealized form of a market economy where buyers and sellers are allowed to transact freely (i.e., buy/sell/trade) based on a mutual agreement on price without state intervention in the form of taxes, subsidies, or regulation." Thus, the term "free market" joins two positive words--freedom and markets--and associates them with the corporatists' ideal of freedom for corporations to maximize short-term profits free from public oversight, taxes, or responsibility for public consequences.
For me, the term "market" evokes the image of a local Saturday morning farmers market like the one where I go to buy fresh produce from my farmer neighbors. Such markets fit perfectly the dictionary definition of a market as "an open place or a covered building where buyers and sellers convene for the sale of goods; a marketplace." These markets feature life-sustaining person-to-person exchange, often while enjoying each other's company and the offerings of food vendors and musicians. These are living markets organized by the people who use them. Most of us love them--and properly so.
The many community markets I have visited around the world are beautiful celebrations of local life and culture, much like street parties. Our Saturday morning farmers market on Bainbridge Island is tiny by comparison with many I've visited. Even so, it draws a vibrant crowd and is an important contributor to building the relationships of trust and caring essential to healthy community function. It is easy to buy into the idea that such markets should be "free" from the heavy hand of government--though, in fact, even these markets have and could not long function without rules, including rules that exclude non-local businesses.
The "free market" of the corporatist ideal is the polar opposite to such community-nourishing living markets. The corporatists' free market is populated and organized by transnational corporations that spurn attachments to people, place, and community. Of course, corporations employ people, but their primary relationship is not to each other. It is to the corporation. And that relationship preempts the direct relationship they might otherwise enjoy with one another and the place they call home.
There is a similar deceptive branding at work in the corporatists' preference for the term "free trade" over simply "trade." For most of us, trade and freedom are both good. "Free trade" connects these associations with the corporatist agenda of trade unconstrained by national boundaries and interests. These set up a positive association with international agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) that are routinely referred to as "free trade" agreements. In fact, they are not about freedom and only indirectly about trade. Filled with thousands of pages of detailed rules, their primary purpose is to strip countries of control of their own borders and transfer that control to global corporations.
Perhaps the most striking "free market" contradiction is that the corporatist neoliberal agenda supports corporate mergers and acquisitions that build concentrations of monopoly power and reduce the market competition that is normally assumed to be a defining feature of a market.
So the next time you hear the term "free market" or "free trade," treat that as a fraud alert. Ask yourself, what are those warm-sounding words trying to sell? And remember, a living Earth economy features living markets, not the "free market," and it engages in fair trade, not "free trade."
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.
To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
News & Opinion
Trending
Common Dreams, Inc. Founded 1997. Registered 501(c3) Non-Profit
Privacy Policy