Nipawin - April 2, 2001 - by: Mario deSantis | |
Brian |
Brian MacLean is a down to earth economist, and many policy makers and journalists would |
benefit a lot if they would subscribe to his free of charge economic newsletter. His articles are | |
an intelligent critique of the economic matters dealt with in the Canadian newspapers and they | |
are full of references about related opinions and research. | |
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global rush |
In his March 5-March 11 newsletter(2), MacLean criticizes Terence Corcoran(3) of the |
National Post for castigating the "new global rush" to "undermine anything that | |
smacks of intellectual property." | |
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growing |
In this respect, we have provided evidence, in one recent article, of the absurdity to protect |
Monsanto's intellectual property right over the natural right to work on our own land(4). In | |
the above mentioned newsletter, MacLean points out that the present monopolies granted to | |
the big multinational corporations in the form of patents and copyrights are not socially | |
optimal, and as a consequence, such monopolies are one of the reasons for the present | |
growing gap between rich and poor countries, and between rich and poor people within one | |
country. | |
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protection |
Different prominent economists are becoming aware that free trade is not about the free |
circulation of goods and services around the world, but about the protection of patents and | |
copy rights of the big multinationals(5)(6). | |
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digitized |
Conventionally, free trade is advertised as the breaking of tariffs by different countries for |
the free circulation of goods and services, but the reality is far away from this biased | |
advertisement. In fact, tariffs, in general, would increase the price of a commodity by at | |
most 20% of the ongoing related price in the country of origin; but as our economies have | |
shifted to a higher proportion of products and services which can be digitized then the | |
increase of prices would be irrespective of any country and could be in the order of | |
thousands times greater than the marginal cost to produce these products and services(7) | |
(almost zero in digitized products or services). | |
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free trade |
As a consequence, contrary to conventional wisdom, free trade is not about free circulation |
of goods and services, but more and more about the protection of patents and copyrights | |
held by the big multinational corporations. | |
------------References/endnotes: | |
List of relevant political and economics articles http://ensign.ftlcomm.com | |