Why free trade results in less freedom.
Free trade? What kind of free do you mean? In the Open Source world, when people are talking about what the term “free software” means, a well-informed geek will tell you about the distinction between free-as-in-beer and free-as-in-speech. Head over to http://www.linuxmint.com/ and you can download a complete Linux system with the OS kernel, a GUI environment, an office suite, web browser, development tools, games, etc. etc. etc. for zero cost. What’s more important to me is that Linux is free as in speech as well, and that’s a big reason why I’m such a huge fan. The Linux kernel, as well as most of the software you see on Linux systems, are made available under an open source license. You get access to the “secret sauce” source code, you can hack it how ever you want, and you can share with your friends and the world. Do that with Windows and you could get sued or prosecuted. With Linux, you get freedom.
But ultimately, the point I’m writing about has to do with trade policy. Here in the U.S., we have a bunch of “free trade” agreements. We have treaties such as NAFTA, we belong to organizations like the WTO, and we extend tremendous trading privileges to nations such as China, because the prevailing philosophy in government circles is to reduce barriers to trade, in other words, to make trade in goods and materials free-as-in-beer. There’s a huge problem. Just as there are multiple definitions of “free” in software, there is also a distinction in trade policy and their economic effects, and the biggest problem is that our current free-as-in-beer trade policy actually causes people here in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world to have less economic freedom.
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