Director-General's Home Page Does free trade mean a better standard of living? During the last thirty years, the U.S. market has been "opened" and deregulated more, and more quickly, than that of any other developed country. But the average hours worked per year in the U.S. increased greatly between 1980 and 1997, while in every other developed country but one, they declined. Compared with 1973, Americans must now work six weeks more per year to achieve the same standard of living--and not surprisingly, Americans are increasingly dissatisfied with their lives.... The WTO's purpose is to broaden and enforce global free trade. Global free trade already gives multinational corporations vast powers to enforce their will against democratic governments. Expanding these corporate powers--as the WTO intends to do in Seattle and beyond--will further cripple governments and make them even less able to protect their citizens from the ravages of those entities whose only aim is to grow richer and richer and richer. Does free trade mean a high growth rate? There is no evidence at all that it does. There is evidence it does not: for example, the average growth rate of developing countries that are rigorously "liberalized" is 2.2%, versus 2.1% for those that are not (a statistically insignificant difference). And markets were never freer than before the Wall Street crash of October, 1929, after which growth slowed much more than 0.1%.... Already today, European countries are being penalized by the WTO for refusing to import genetically modified crops and hormone-treated meat from the U.S. They are being penalized, too, for purchasing bananas from former colonies, rather than from El Salvador or Guatemala, which produce bananas more cheaply, although under harsher conditions. For according to WTO rules enforcing "free trade," foreign policy and even human rights considerations are not allowed to enter purchasing decisions, and if a country is found to have chosen one What is "free market" theory based on, if not on facts or statistics? "Modern" free-market theory, in which goods must be free to travel unhindered, is little changed from the teachings of Adam Smith and David Ricardo, who wrote two hundred years ago, in Britain, under conditions entirely different from those of the present. There is still no statistical reason to believe that this theory works, but corporations have many selfish economic reasons to make it the law. product over another for humanitarian or political reasons, that country is subject to huge fines and embargoes. The WTO wants to solidify its successes, and grant itself even greater powers to dictate the law to democracies. If the WTO succeeds in Seattle, local and national governments will be less able to protect themselves against corporate policies, or to enact their own policies where these do not further free trade. Commerce will become the rule and everything else, including human rights, the exception.