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It's not just Libertarians who would agree with me on those things. Plenty of people form other political parties would also agree with me.
If you were living in a mud puddle in a third world country, and all you had to eat were roots and beetle larve, and some rich corporation came by and offered you a job, wouldn't you be glad to take it? If they offered to pay you in one day what you had previosuly made in a week, wouldn't you be glad to take it?
In the real world, countries that have free trade have a lot more economic growth, a lot more investment, a lot more job creation, a lot more upward mobility, and a lot more increases in the standard of living, than those that don't have free trade.
You know those thrid world countries where the poeple live in the mud and the flies are buzzing around them and the people are starving? These are usually the countries that have the strongest trade barriers. The other end of the spectrum would be Hong Kong, which basically has zero barriers to trade.
Thomas Friedman was talking about how certain left wing radicals in the U.S. were against the U.S. signing a free trade treaty with certain African countries a few years ago. But the U.S. singed it anyway. Since then, those African countries have seen their exports skyrocket, and many people in those African countries have mad major increases in their standard of living as a result.
I don't have access to an online version of the column, so I can't copy and paste it here.
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