Technology
Anti-trade Riots are Result of Coalition between Protectionists and Power-mongers
IPN Opinion article
Environmental and consumer activists claim that trade harms the environment and reduces consumer choice. Huh? Where have these people been for the past fifty years? The idea that trade reduces consumer choice is simply daft, ranking alongside the communist dictum \'freedom through planning\' as one of the twentieth century\'s greatest fallacies. As we know from Friedrich Hayek and from the bitter experience of billions, central planning is the road to serfdom, not freedom. Likewise, a restriction on free and voluntary trade between individuals is by definition a restriction on choice. As regards the claim that trade damages the environment, evidence from across the world shows precisely the opposite. Trade results in improved allocation of resources, thereby benefiting the environment.
Ending patents not the cure
IPN Opinion article
\"The problem with the ending of patent protection, though, is that in the long term we all lose, especially those in developing countries. And that will be the outcome if the pharmaceutical companies fail in their attempt starting on March 5 in Pretoria High Court to overturn legislation that allows patent-breaking anti-AIDS drugs to be imported from India...\"
Anti-trade Riots are Result of Coalition between Protectionists and Power-mongers
IPN Opinion article
Environmental and consumer activists claim that trade harms the environment and reduces consumer choice. Huh? Where have these people been for the past fifty years? The idea that trade reduces consumer choice is simply daft, ranking alongside the communist dictum 'freedom through planning' as one of the twentieth century's greatest fallacies. As we know from Friedrich Hayek and from the bitter experience of billions, central planning is the road to serfdom, not freedom. Likewise, a restriction on free and voluntary trade between individuals is by definition a restriction on choice. As regards the claim that trade damages the environment, evidence from across the world shows precisely the opposite. Trade results in improved allocation of resources, thereby benefiting the environment.
