We rather take for granted the maxim that free trade is a good thing. This article from the BBC's Andrew Walker
might just, at the margin make you think again. It makes it clear that
economic theory is unequivocal: free trade is good for the whole, but
that this doesn't mean that it's good for every individual.
And then it goes on looking at whether or not, even
accepting for economy-wide gains, the losers from free trade are
adequately compensated, and it concludes that rarely are. As Lawrence
Mischel of the Economic Policy Institute, is quoted as saying that "The
winners have never tried to fully compensate the losers, so let's stop
claiming that trade benefits us all."
