First Regulate Sweatshops, Pirates, and Casinos, Then Open Trade
By Donella Meadows
–September 23, 1993–
What is it about NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) that lines up such a wierd coalition as Jesse Jackson, Ross Perot, Pat Buchanan, and Greenpeace against it — and a wierder coalition of Bill Clinton, Bob Dole, the Mexican government, and the World Wildlife Fund for it?
It’s simple, the anti-NAFTA crowd would say. The [...]
Free Trade Can Work Against the Environment – Or For It
By Donella Meadows
–September 16, 1993–
Environmentalists who worry about NAFTA and other trade agreements like to tell the tuna-dolphin story — though the moral of that story is far from clear.
Schools of yellowfin tuna off the Pacific coast often swim below groups of dolphin. Fishermen look for the dolphin to find the tuna. With their powerful purse-seine nets, they used to [...]
Why We Shouldn’t Ask Economists About NAFTA
By Donella Meadows
–September 9, 1993–
More than biotechnology or weapons technology, more than any other change in our rapidly changing world, the globalization of the economy is affecting everyone on the planet, and not for the better. If we value democracy, the environment, or our jobs, we need to keep an eye not only on the North American Free Trade Agrement [...]
Dear Folks: August 22, 1993
Dear Folks,
The calm before the storm. I leave on Wednesday for Budapest and the Balaton meeting — always the high point and most exhausting week of my year — a week when I’m with 50 of my closest partners and best friends from around the world and it seems a shame to waste time sleeping — a 50-ring circus of [...]
Free Trade Benefits Traders, Not Nations
By Donella Meadows
–August 27, 1992–
Wow! The world’s largest trading area, populated by 360 million people! A free market from the Yukon to the Yucatan! The latest dramatic chapter, says President Bush, in the new world Christopher Columbus discovered 500 years ago!
It’s enough to give you shivers down your back.
But have you ever stopped to wonder what, exactly, is to be [...]
