It would be nice if they did so, but I know better than to expect such a profound criticism from a bourgeois paper.
[1] https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21695855-americ...
This is what Communists mean when they say they are opposed to Free trade. Because the sale of labour-power for wage is an unequal relationship from the outset, in a similar way to how the feudal serf producing his quit-rent-corn for the feudal lord - yes, he may refuse to hand it over (he has the freedom of choice), but should he take that freedom, which is human-created, structural, he is liable to poverty, destitution and death.
Edit: I must also note that it also works the other way. The capitalist is not free from capital either, within a capitalist economy - he must employ wage labour, make it his only concern, in order to survive, without which he will either be forced to become a worker, or if he cannot find work then become destitute. As such, Property itself is a restrictive force, acquiring a mind of its own. It is in the self-interest of the workers and the capitalist to counter this system which restricts them so.
[0] Kropotkin wrote in The Conquest of Bread: "We cry shame on the feudal baron who forbade the peasant to turn a clod of earth unless he surrendered to his lord a fourth of his crop. We call those the barbarous times. But if the forms have changed, the relations have remained the same, and the worker is forced, under the name of free contract, to accept feudal obligations. For, turn where he will, he can find no better conditions. Everything has become private property, and he must accept, or die of hunger.
The result of this state of things is that all our production tends in a wrong direction. Enterprise takes no thought for the needs of the community. Its only aim is to increase the gains of the speculator. Hence the constant fluctuations of trade, the periodical industrial crises, each of which throws scores of thousands of workers on the streets."
There is no such requirement. Nobody is being slaved/forced to work (and if they are it's illegal) with anyone. And that's not what Free Trade is about at all.
Do you think many people, especially the poorest or those in the least favourable jobs, would engage in such wage labour if they had the opportunity not to? No, they engage in it beacuse they are forced by the circumstance of the capitalist system. It is an impersonal force, but a human constructed social and structural force nonetheless.
I realise that there is a distinction between 'killing' and 'letting die', and it is philosophically significant, but most people would agree that a system in which 'letting die' is a fine course of action save for the intervention of the twisted charity of the State which defends the system is not an ethical one, nor a moral one, in a world in which it is certainly possible to do better.
Kropotkin's solution to the evils of capitalism is anarchism - a utopia where people would just cooperate and get along. This is a fantasy, and to substantiate it he day-dreams about the good old pre-feudal days(which never existed in the way he dreams of them). Just like communism, his proposals rely on fundamentally changing human nature - they are meant for a different species, not us. Your "certainly possible to do better" world is nowhere in sight, from my point of view.
We've had poets, sci-fi writers and activists speak about how we should do better, how we should find that utopia where everyone is equal(ignores intrinsic human variance), everyone is happy and getting along(ignores basic human nature), and no one is poor(ignores the relativity of wealth). In fact, the changes in human nature that these systems require would also change capitalism for the better - i.e. you don't need a system that fairly redistributes wealth, if everyone is as altruistic as Gates after his career.
>Is this the "not ethical" "not moral" system that is "letting people die"?
Yes, none other than it. You'll notice that your point about raising standards of living is actually irrelevant to the deeper point I have made about selling one's labour-power for wage, which people must continue to do - it is this which I regard as the oppressive element, or rather, the Private property which ensures its existence. If mere standard of living were my concern, I'd be a social democrat, not a Communist.
>Just like communism, his proposals rely on fundamentally changing human nature
I love how unsubstantiated this argument always is. Is human nature unchangable, and to what extent can it be changed, and how can this change be examined? Erich Fromm examines this in Escape from Freedom, which is a psycho-social work. Marx comments:
>The materialist doctrine that men are products of circumstances and upbringing, and that, therefore, changed men are products of changed circumstances and changed upbringing, forgets that it is men who change circumstances and that the educator must himself be educated. Hence this doctrine is bound to divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to society. The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-change [Selbstveränderung] can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice.
>where everyone is equal
No. This is a severe misunderstanding of Communist theory. I am no Leninist (not by any means) but he replied to a man (a "liberal professor") who made a similar mistake to you, here:
> Mr. Tugan repeats the old trick of the reactionaries: first to misinterpret socialism by making it out to be an absurdity, and then to triumphantly refute the absurdity! When we say that experience and reason prove that men are not equal, we mean by equality, equality in abilities or similarity in physical strength and mental ability. It goes without saying that in this respect men are not equal. No sensible person and no socialist forgets this. But this kind of equality has nothing whatever to do with socialism. If Mr. Tugan is quite unable to think, he is at least able to read; were lie to Lake the well-known work of one of the founders of scientific socialism, Frederick Engels, directed against Dühring, he would find there a special section explaining the absurdity of imagining that economic equality means anything else than the abolition of classes. But when professors set out to refute socialism, one never knows what to wonder at most—their stupidity, their ignorance, or their unscrupulousness.
>and no one is poor(ignores the relativity of "poorness")
Socialism does not promise that some will not have more than others; the relativity of poverty is accepted.
>i.e. you don't need a system that fairly redistributes wealth, if everyone is as altruistic as Gates after his career.
Again, I must correct you - it is not about redistribution, it is about workers owning the products of their labour and their free association. Capitalism guarantees neither (and in fact relies upon the infringement of both!)
I'll also finally note - it is extremely rare for my knowledge for the lowest wage labourers ("rags") to accrue sufficient capital via their wage, to support their family, etc. in order to become capitalists themselves. And if it does happen, there is still a huge number of people engaging in wage labour. Capitalism requires there to be more labourers than capitalists. So beacuse the injustice is a little smaller, it should be neglected, as you say? No, new people born every minute are destined to wage labour. The idea that it is possible ignores that for most people it really isn't possible. They still exist, and their state is a sorry one.
Many people could afford to live in very small homes, and live with about nothing but a bed and a shack and decide instead to have big cars, huge houses, big fields, 3 TVs and 3 smartphones, while they probably need none of those to live well. So "most people" are certainly not working just to sustain themselves, they are actively working to keep getting richer. That's what we see across the world, read any recent World Bank report explaining how poverty is decreasing everywhere and level of life is increasing (yet people still choose to work for more money, to buy more stuff when they can, not just be satisfied with what they have).
Poorer countries with less developed markets are forced to open their domestic markets to foreign countries and competitors who then completely outcompete and dominate the local offerings. This prevents local business from developing and many existing ones go bankrupt in the face of foreign competition. This tends to leave the local market largely undeveloped in terms of domestic companies, and results in money flowing out of the country to foreign shareholders.
Another problem is that so-called "free" trade isn't totally free.
Some of the places that espouse free trade, like the US and Europe, don't practice what they preach. The most egregious example I can think of is agriculture subsidies, which effectively prevent (for example) African farmers from selling their produce in those markets while additionally making produce (like poultry) from those countries cheaper than local offerings, which again bankrupts locals.
Poorer countries which can't sell their agricultural goods on the global market don't fare too well. It goes both ways. Check the level of life in Cuba for example.
Which proves free trade is a shit of a system for most developing countries.
I don't believe in a 100% free market but I do believe that giving developing countries access to our economy is good for them (look at large parts of asia) and is better than less free trade.