| Sumario: | The emerging global marketplace needs to learn from the successful national economies that rules are essential to restrain the overwhelming power of capital to ignore the social costs of maximizing profits. “Free trade” is, in fact, a misnomer, and the lengthy trade agreements drawn up over the past few years prove that their primary purpose is to dismantle social protections and financial regulations in order to allow capital to flow unhindered across borders. Supporters of the Washington Consensus—a package of investor protections—assert that the benefits of free trade will make up for social contract losses by transforming developing countries into Western-style democratic democracies. The administration of President Clinton relies on free trade generalizations, misleading economic data, assumptions that the benefits justify any costs, and claims that liberalization will assist those in poor countries.
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