NAFTA
On January 1, 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the free trade policy linking the economies of Canada, the United States, and Mexico was officially implemented. Over the past decade, the policy has evoked a firestorm of debate involving neoliberal advocates, mercantilist critics, and radical critics, all of whom analyze and critique NAFTA in an effort to determine the success of free trade. Since NAFTA policies are evaluated by political economists with differing ideologies, the success of NAFTA’s first decade remains in question. After a decade, which economists herald NAFTA as a success and who disregards it as a failure? Which set of economic and political standards ...
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three theoretical perspectives: neoliberalsim, mercantilism, and radicalism. The three theories emphasize divergent characteristics associated with economic vitality: neoliberals emphasize market efficiency, mercantilists defend state sovereignty, and radicals value social justice. History has taught us that these theories regularly contradict each other and ultimately result in policy conflicts evidenced by countless case studies. Free trade and economic growth is a pressing concern for political economists, suggesting that little common ground can be found among the three theories.
The first of the three political economy scholars are neoliberals, who reject government intervention in the economy through protectionist policies such as tariffs, subsidies, and quotas; rather, their focus is on overall economic growth as evidenced by increases in gross domestic product. Neoliberal advocates expected NAFTA to produce an increase in exports of goods and services, create ...
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assembling necessities during a time of war, mercantilists believe the state is no longer strong in their realist, balance of power world. Mercantilist literature offers three critiques of NAFTA: free trade will lessen the importance of domestic production and create a trade deficit that will jeopardize millions of manufacturing jobs, reduce workers’ wages and fringe benefits, and increase immigration to the United States via Mexico.
Finally, radical critics are the third group of political economists attempting to accurately evaluate the first decade of NAFTA, but they evaluate free trade not on market efficiency or state sovereignty, but social equality. Radicals are progressive ...
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NAFTA. (2012, December 2). Retrieved April 25, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/NAFTA/102063
"NAFTA." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 2 Dec. 2012. Web. 25 Apr. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/NAFTA/102063>
"NAFTA." Essayworld.com. December 2, 2012. Accessed April 25, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/NAFTA/102063.
"NAFTA." Essayworld.com. December 2, 2012. Accessed April 25, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/NAFTA/102063.
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