free trade and 18.68
free trade and 18.68
Posted Nov 19, 2015 21:40 UTC (Thu) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183)In reply to: free trade and 18.68 by Seegras
Parent article: The Trans-Pacific Partnership and free software
Free trade does not mean free of restrictions, just free of *additional* restrictions.
The dispute settlement system is indeed a tricky area, gotta watch out there.
free trade and 18.68
Posted Nov 19, 2015 22:49 UTC (Thu)
by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106)
[Link] (5 responses)
Posted Nov 19, 2015 22:49 UTC (Thu) by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106) [Link] (5 responses)
As a term of art in international treaties, perhaps, as those are between governments which all impose some sort of restriction on free trade and are loath to give that up. Everywhere else, "free trade" means exactly that: trade free of restrictions, meaning that any two (or more) individuals can exchange whatever goods and/or services they own, subject only to mutual consent.
free trade and 18.68
Posted Nov 20, 2015 8:08 UTC (Fri)
by kleptog (subscriber, #1183)
[Link] (4 responses)
Posted Nov 20, 2015 8:08 UTC (Fri) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link] (4 responses)
That kind of "free trade" hasn't existed for a long time. You cannot sell me an electronic device with less than two years warranty. You cannot misrepresent your product, that's fraud. Sales of arms are restricted in various ways. Only in a B2B transaction where both sides have lawyers and an actual signed written contract do many of the restrictions go away. But even then there are plenty of for example chemical substances which can't be traded without restrictions.
I don't think anyone uses the term outside of international treaties because within a country it is understood that trade is never totally free. The only distinction is if it is more or less free than elsewhere.
free trade and 18.68
Posted Nov 20, 2015 17:59 UTC (Fri)
by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106)
[Link] (3 responses)
Posted Nov 20, 2015 17:59 UTC (Fri) by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106) [Link] (3 responses)
It would still be a perfectly valid concept, even if only as an ideal to strive toward rather than anything that exists in reality.
However, I would contend that most trades are close enough to free to qualify for all practical purposes. Sure, some trades people would like to engage in are subject to third-party interference, and in other cases trade is forced to occur against the owner's wishes, but those are the exceptions rather than the rule. The vast majority of interactions between individuals are voluntary ones. The minority of involuntary cases simply stand out more.
> You cannot misrepresent your product, that's fraud.
Engaging in fraud implies that you did not get mutual consent from the other party, so trade based on fraud is not free trade; it's equivalent to theft.
free trade and 18.68
Posted Nov 20, 2015 21:16 UTC (Fri)
by zlynx (guest, #2285)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Nov 20, 2015 21:16 UTC (Fri) by zlynx (guest, #2285) [Link] (2 responses)
There is of course a fine line between fraud and inadequate education of one party or the other. Or both.
Paying $1,000 for an antique wood table that turns out to be nothing special might be fraud if the seller said it was owned by George Washington but it wasn't. The same transaction isn't fraud if the buyer thought it was a special table and bid the price up to $1,000. In both cases the real fault is the buyer whose knowledge of antique tables is clearly lacking.
free trade and 18.68
Posted Nov 20, 2015 21:51 UTC (Fri)
by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Nov 20, 2015 21:51 UTC (Fri) by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106) [Link] (1 responses)
No, in the first case the fault is with the seller. A buyer should always be able to take whatever the seller claims about their product at face value, for the purpose of assessing fault and liability. (That is not to say that it isn't a good idea for a prospective buyer to verify such claims in the interest of self-protection, since dealing with the fraud after the fact is much more hassle and one may not be able to fully recover any damages.)
In the second case the seller didn't misrepresent the product; the buyer just made poor assumptions. In that case the fault clearly does lie with the buyer, as you say. As long as the seller did nothing to deliberately mislead the buyer into making those assumptions, no fraud took place. (Note that this isn't necessarily limited to words, though other forms of deception can be hard to prove.)
free trade and 18.68
Posted Nov 22, 2015 4:34 UTC (Sun)
by giraffedata (guest, #1954)
[Link]
Posted Nov 22, 2015 4:34 UTC (Sun) by giraffedata (guest, #1954) [Link]
A buyer should always be able to take whatever the seller claims about their product at face value, for the purpose of assessing fault and liability.
That's what our law says, but I believe zlynx was talking about a higher right. There are actual human societies, not to mention theoretical ones, where caveat emptor is the rule, and it would appear that zlynx believes those are more moral.
Morality aside, I believe assigning fault to the lying seller as our laws do is practical and efficient. It's inefficient to make the buyer hire an expert (or become one) on antique furniture when the seller is already one.