Thursday, October 18, 2007

Barking Up the Wrong Rain Forest

Robert Naiman at the Huffington Post has misplaced fears in free trade. Citing the upcoming trade agreement with Peru, Naiman writes the agreement "would give U.S. oil companies powerful new rights to exploit Peru's Amazonian rain forest...Indigenous leaders in Peru have rejected the agreement."

If the problem is the government will give US companies rain forest that others agree on, then the fundamental problem is government owned land, not free trade. If the indigenous people owned the land, then they could decide if they wished to lease or sell it to others. With free trade, they could get more money for what they would be willing to sell, allowing them to enhance their life in other ways.

Free trade is not the problem. A lack private property is.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Oh lord, you're one of those cretinous and ignorant libertarians. Your brother told us about you over at Pharyngula. It looks like he got all the IQ points.