Uhhh...based libertarians?
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I don't see how free trade would destroy the middle class. Maybe we have different definitions
Free trade lets people accustomed to living in dirt and shit produce goods at prices that American workers and manufacturers can't compete with while maintaining a high standard of living.
Part of the problem is that we implement free trade while letting the other side use tariffs, which isn't free trade at all.
Free trade is you both drop trade barriers and compete with one another on a level playing field (no currency manipulations or tariffs), or you resort to tariffs until the other side relents.
If we had real free trade then we would either drop regulation that hurts competition or have the other country agree to adopt them. You can't trade equally when you have vastly different legal requirements on manufacturers, different monetary policy, etc.
That's why it is simpler to use tariffs to control things and be independent of any other system. You can only do free trade on a 1 to 1 basis with a similarly advanced country, or you will get undercut by slave labor as you mention.
You are thinking "Free
TradeMarket" the fundamental right to buy and sell goods without government intervention. The core of what makes "capitalism" good.They are talking "Free International Trade" that incentivizes dirt cheap foreign labor and goods over local goods. The core of what allowed unaccountable Corporations to dominate the world.
The language gap between liberterians, lolberterians, and conservatives is not that much better than the one between conservatives and communists.
I can't say I really hear people use the phrase "free trade" outside of international trade policy. When talking about domestic trade, it's usually phrased as "free market".
It get's interchanged frequently on patriots. I've interjected into this same miscommunication dozens of times over the last two years.
There's an ever growing amount of people who have never paid much attention to foreign policy, and the libertarians are right, "free trade" has been pushed as a neocon position in the past, as if it was equivalent to free market. It's not uncommon for this debate to get derailed by misunderstanding. It's also not uncommon for some conservatives to still think free trade is a good idea.
Free trade is a misnomer, if I enslaved an entire country, forced them to make products which you buy for cheap, where is the freedom? Free trade can only occur when both sides of the trade have the same human rights. Alabama can freely trade and compete with California because they are bound by the same constitution. No American can freely trade with China because their constituents are not free, they are forced.
Because these are your competitors in the global marketplace: https://allthatsinteresting.com/cage-homes-hong-kong Are you willing to go live in a filthy cage to keep your advantage?
"But if you can compete with a guy living in a coffin-sized cage then you just suck and you need to git gud!" - Nobody who says stuff like this has had to work with a bunch of Indians. Companies will happily hire three completely incompetent street-shitting Pajeets for pennies on the dollar to replace a single competent white guy, it happens daily and it doesn't put them at a competitive disadvantage because competition does it too, because the managerial class is filled with insane, malicious psychopaths who will literally set the your grandma on fire to make a few bucks, and they'll be gone by the time the disastrous consequences of their decisions catch up with the company they previously infested.
Everybody benefits from competition. If rather just have stuff that's cheaper than work a shit job for minimum wage. I wouldn't even consider myself middle class if I made minimum wage.
And you know what, those jobs that you like so much might not even go over seas if the Republicans would grow some balls and deregulate some shit.