NationStates Jolt Archive

This is my first proposal, and it turns out I would need 2 minimum endorsement fot this being submitted as a proposal. Here's what I will say in the proposal, and anyone who's interested, please endorse me. Thanks.

Unemployment rates on the rise and minimum wages not guaranteed. Big corporations in wealthy developed countries outsource domestic jobs overseas to Third World countries where labors are paid next to nothing and environment standards are almost non-existent.

Eight-hour workdays, forty-hour weeks, paid vacations, sick leaves and pensions are not something that can be taken for granted in developing countries. The poverty of Third World nations is also a brewing ingredient for religious extremism that threatens the world peace.

Free trade, as it is right now, is not a system that benefits the workers of either developed countries or developing countries, especially economically disadvantaged artisans and farmers.

This is an initiative to adopt Fair Trade in NationStates.

Wrong.

Freedom is the only important thing.

Thanks for playing, ignorant socialist.

sound good working 8-hour work days

This sounds like a good preamble. Now how about providing some details as to how you envision this "fair trade" would work?

Please realize we most likely share your principles, but cannot support a blank ticket.

We would like to see a definition of ‘free trade’ included in your proposal.

Desdemona,
UN representative,
The Black New World

For what is writen, Hazatak supports this proposal. Free trade must be fair for both wealth and poor, large and small. Otherwise, it isn´t free.

Yeah i would like to hear what you mean by free trade ?

Because free trade doesnt sound good to me, well not the free trade agreements that exist at the moment.

I adore your proposal. I would endorse you if you were in the North Polar Region. If we vote on it, I would definitely vote for it.

Wrong.

Freedom is the only important thing.

Thanks for playing, ignorant socialist.

I am not against the freedom in international, domestic trades. Free trade concept at that level is to prosper all people. BUT, a free trade system without fairness is a threat to democracy and world peace. What I want here is fairness in trades on top of Free Trade.

I couldn't find any related topic on this forum or past UN proposals. Could someone tell me if this is something that's already addressed?

Wrong.

Freedom is the only important thing.

Thanks for playing, ignorant socialist.

Are all socialists ignorant? Is freedom more important than order and good government?

Yeah i would like to hear what you mean by free trade ?

Because free trade doesnt sound good to me, well not the free trade agreements that exist at the moment.

Platonic Dystopia would like to take the lead on the discussion of Fair Trade. Fair trade initiative focuses on minimum wage requirements, working hour guarantees and environment regulations.

The amount of hours that people need to work is of course going to be dependent upon their situations and needs.

The current "Free Trade" systems are a sham, of course, but inflicting one group's worker and environmental protections on another is not strictly speaking practical.

As productivity rises, the amount of goods and services that workers produce rises per hour. That means that places with very low productivity need to work their workers more hours if they want to produce the same things.

At the extreme end, places with extremely low productivity (such as developing economies), may need to work each worker more than 40 hours a week just to feed everyone. Certainly classical ancient Sumeria had long work days, 90% of the people working agriculture, and still had frequent famines. Were we to inflict modern worker protections upon them - without also granting them modern capital and agricultural science - they would all starve to death.

Perhaps unfortunately, it is simply impractical to force people to adopt strong worker protections before they are ready. Are you really prepared to say that there is sufficient non-human resources everywhere on the planet such that we could all be granted leisure time without anyone starving? I'm not.

Don't make me come over there.

Maybe if the rich nations would help the poor nations, then they wouldn't need to work long hours.

Hooglastahn, hit the nail on the head. I'd like to add to the statement as well. The only thing that encourages companies to set up factories in 3rd world countries is the cheap labor. That's a 3rd world country's most valuable resource. They wouldn't have jobs at all if it wasn't for cheap labor.

That is true. But the developing countries don't produce all the same things as developed countries. New products with new technologies and innovations hit the market in larger quantity and faster pace than ever. The depreciation of older products forced corporations in rich countries to search for cheap labors to keep up with demanding profit margin.

You might say the poor people in developing countries are living more materialistic life than before because of the jobs they pick up from foreign trade. You might also argue slaves were living better in 19th century than in 18th century. But it doesn’t justify the exploitation of these people. The greed of corporations in rich countries is exactly the reason for child labor, sweat shops and lack of civil rights in developing countries.


As productivity rises, the amount of goods and services that workers produce rises per hour. That means that places with very low productivity need to work their workers more hours if they want to produce the same things.

Perhaps unfortunately, it is simply impractical to force people to adopt strong worker protections before they are ready...... without anyone starving.

And that sounds exactly the same as Chinese totalitarian communist regime.

The free trade I am referring here is the free trade that exists in the real world. And if this trend continues, the gap between developed countries and developing countries is only going to widen. The rich countries will face more and more immigration and humanitarian problems. And the democracy will be even harder to thrive in poor countries.

This is an initiative for now. Platonic Dystopia is calling for international community to setup a fair and balanced framework concerning international trades and capital movements.

Hooglastahn, hit the nail on the head. I'd like to add to the statement as well. The only thing that encourages companies to set up factories in 3rd world countries is the cheap labor. That's a 3rd world country's most valuable resource. They wouldn't have jobs at all if it wasn't for cheap labor.

What about during the Industrial Revolution, when workers earned pathetically low wages (even with inflation added. . .look at the standard of living they had) Did you support that?

Many currently wealthy nations have reached their position thanks to the exploitation of other countries' labour. 'Free' trade perpetuates this unfortunate circumstance. Why must we always adopt the ways of the past? They are not sacred and should not be treated as such.

An intelligent, comprehensive and well-worded resolution promoting fair trade would earn our emphatic support.

Vlad Taneev
Speaker for the Economy

Thanks to the support from Wilkshire and Frejmark. This proposal has been submitted, searchable by keyword "fair trade".

Thanks to the support from Wilkshire and Frejmark, this proposal has been submitted to UN. It can be searched by keyword "fair trade"

A good concept, would be interested in endorsing you, but require more clarificstion. A suggestion would be to invite the countries to an international conference. As a small country in the south Pacific, with no allies. Saoirche would be an ideal location for any such meeting and would like to be associated with such a treaty.