Africans Championed Free Trade: Violence, Sovereignty, and Competition in the Era of Atlantic Slave Trade

The Atlantic Slave Trade

Genetic Consequences of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in the Americas

Neoliberalism is a complex and ambiguous concept that has been consistently referred to by critics of an economic policy based, at least rhetorically, on free market and free trade in the last few decades. These two major tenets of neoliberalism have dominated the discourse of American presidents since the beginning of the 1980s. The same period has also been characterized by an increased tendency to tie these economic policies to freedom, a core value of American identity that came to be defined primarily in economic terms. Starting with Ronald Reagan, economic freedom rather than political liberty became the measure of virtue, as the “free world” admitted more authoritarian regimes in its ranks in the name of anti-communism (Numberg 2003). The collapse of the Soviet bloc only served to bolster the vision that free market and free trade alone could bring prosperity and political freedom. This would become the dominant worldview at international institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF and would be solidified in the rhetoric of Republican and Democratic presidents alike (McNaught 2009). Drawing on the rhetorical and cognitive approaches developed by Lakoff and Johnson (1981), Chilton (2004) and Charteris-Black (2011), this paper analyses how conceptual metaphors in presidential discourse have contributed to creating a mythical vision of free trade and free market since the 1980s. The metaphors of movement, journey, nature, machine and sport resonate with the way Americans understand and experience their national identity, at the center of which are the values of freedom, competition and progress. They have turned an abstract economic philosophy into a comprehensible and sacred story at the heart of the American model. This model has been one of expansion of free markets and free trade. It has also been pervasive even in the domestic sphere, in the way a divisive issue like health care was framed through a positive market narrative. Despite policies that may have occasionally seemed to contradict the faith in the market, especially in the wake of the 2008 financial and economic meltdown, presidential discourse remained focused on free trade and free markets. This economic crisis may have triggered the first cracks in the mostly consensual view of free trade and free market in political rhetoric across the board. This article argues that much as there was a neoliberal consensus for 35 years, President Trump has been the great disrupter of neoliberal rhetoric by rejecting free trade agreements and by ignoring altogether the virtue of free market, a notion almost entirely absent from his discourse. He has replaced the neoliberal doxa with a discourse centered on the trade deficit and on short-term accumulation of national wealth and power. He has embraced the virtue of national sovereignty while rejecting what he called “globalism”. He has offered an antagonistic vision of a world in which international trade is conceived as a zero-sum game. This new vision is reflected in the metaphors used by a president who has challenged the norms of presidential rhetoric at many levels.

“We Never Could Understand Why the Black Man Did Not Come to Us”:

“We Never Could Understand Why the Black Man Did Not Come to Us”:

To globalize means to make worldwide in scope or application. We live in a global ecosystem; in this, we have no choice. Increasingly, all nations of the world share a global culture, a consequence of past choices. And, the economy has become increasingly global as well. However, within the global ecosystem are boundaries, which give form and structure to natural systems. Within the global culture are boundaries, which define different human values and perspectives of reality. And within the global economy are boundaries, which allow nations to reflect the differences in their natural ecosystems and social cultures in the structure and functioning of their economies. The World Trade Organization (WTO) appears committed to removing all “barriers” to international trade, to achieve “free trade,” and thus, to removing all “economic boundaries” among nations. Once the economic boundaries are removed, cultural boundaries will become further blurred, and ecological boundaries will be left open to economic exploitation. Cultural and ecological diversity are considered obstacles to economic progress. A truly global economy will allow greater geographic specialization, greater standardization of processes and products, and thus, will allow global corporations to achieve even greater economies of scale. In a global agricultural economy, small farms will be replaced by large farms, which in turn will be controlled by giant multinational corporations. Small farmers quite simply will not be able to compete in a “free market” global economy. Many small farmers of the world rely on horticultural crops for their viability. Thus, the implications of globalization may be even more dramatic for horticulture than for most other agricultural sectors. But even more important, ecological and cultural boundaries are essential to the long run sustainability of agriculture. Thus, if all economic boundaries are removed, human life on earth, at least as we know it, will not be sustainable. Over the past decade, globalization has become a major public issue. Most of the recent controversy has centered on the World Trade Organization (WTO). The WTO was established in 1994, with authority to oversee international trade, administer free trade agreements, and settle trade disputes among member nations, replacing the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade (GATT). However under the WTO, authority was greatly expanded to cover trade in services as well as merchandise – including protection of intellectual property rights. And, intellectual property rights have been interpreted to include the genetic code of living organisms. Also, the WTO has far greater authority over trade in agricultural commodities than had existed under the GATT. The implicit, if not explicit, objective in forming the WTO was to reduce and eventually remove all restraints to trade, in order to achieve a single “global free market.” “Globalization,” as a concept, is far broader in meaning than is the concept of a “global free market.” To “globalize,” according to Webster’s dictionary, means “to make worldwide in scope or application.” The objective of the WTO is to create a single geographic market that is worldwide in scope, with a single set of trading rules that are worldwide in application. However, we cannot change the global economy without Proc. XXVI IHC – Sustainability of Horticultural Systems Eds. L. Bertschinger and J.D. Anderson Acta Hort. 638, ISHS 2004 Publication supported by Can. Int. Dev. Agency (CIDA) 400 simultaneously affecting global ecology and global society. This is the crux of the current WTO controversy. What are the implications of a “global free market,” not just for the world economy, but for the world community and for the world itself? We live in a global ecosystem, regardless of whether we like it or not. We have no choice; such is the nature of “nature.” The atmosphere is global. Whatever we put in the air in one place eventually may find its way to any other place on the globe. Weather is global. The warming or cooling of the oceans in one part of the world affects the weather in another, which in turn affects the temperature of oceans elsewhere on the globe. All the elements of the biosphere are interrelated and interconnected, including its human elements. We are all members of the global community of nature. We have no choice in

A small medium micro enterprises is the most resistant to the economic crisis as a small business is able to survive in the mid business high competition . In the era of free trade Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) into alternative buffer belt of the nation's economy. In a free market opens a challenge and an opportunity that is very promising for the development of SMEs in Batam. As a business unit, SMEs in view of need to increase the capacity and competitiveness of SMEs fellow in Batam as well as in other areas. Positive competition among SMEs will encourage owners of capital to innovate and inculcate product shares towards business opportunities that allows rapid turn-around of their money back. Product quality challenges ahead in order to compete with foreign products which entering the country. In business development, promotion is an effective tool for introducing the product. Further interest in the promotional products market is done will be the target for Entrepreneurs. So it is important for business owners are to choose the right promotional media. Radio is one of the effective promotional tools. In the development of SMEs, selecting a local radio as a promotional tool which effective and affordable. Radio broadcasting as a frequent media interface in the everyday life (Prayudha, 2004). Radio is expected to not only provide entertainment, but also can provide information that can be received and used the audience for productive activities, while enhancing public knowledge, so that by itself is expected to be more critical of community development program. This is increasingly important in line with the more intense attempts utilizing radio as a means of communication and media development in Indonesia. Radio program not merely convey information, but can be interesting, even indirectly to direct the behavior of the audience. Therefore, the radio can be used as promotional tools that play a role in improving public services. With the assistance of an interesting narrative advertisement or promotion of the product in the form of talk shows, SMEs as businesses will benefit by using the radio as a promotional tool. When acting as a resource whose role is to provide information to the public services, SMEs must be able to meet the needs of listeners, so the impact on the listener satisfaction for SMEs services. Radio through specific programming also serves as a place to collect and convey the needs of the market for the SMEs’ products.

Evaluation of CO 2 free electricity trading market in Japan by multi-agent simulations

Of Free Trade Agreements, Pharmaceuticals and Global Ethics

<p>Along with the gradual phase-out of fossil-fuels, technology readiness and cost decline of renewable energy technologies and battery storages can bring new prospects for renewable energy trading market and extensive power-sector decarbonization. Renewable energy trading market has rapidly transformed from traditional grid-based transactions towards future direct free trading with multi-stakeholders. However, the direct free trading market for sustainable development of renewable energy systems is unclear, in terms of establishment conditions, increased profit margin and promotion initiatives. In this study, free trading markets with spontaneous renewable system installations among stakeholders instead of government are proposed for spatiotemporal energy and economic balances with different types of buildings and electric vehicles (EVs). For the centralized renewable energy system, it is proposed based on energy transmission and energy trading between centralized PV farms and consumers. Besides, free trading market in the distributed renewable energy system is also established between EV owners and prosumers with flexible energy management strategies (i.e. EV energy sharing, and EV battery cascade utilization). Roles of EVs under vehicle-to-everything (V2X) with different charging/discharging modes are analysed considering the trade-off between additional expenditures on EV battery cycling aging costs and additional economic profits for economic feasibility and carbon emission reduction for environmental sustainability based on dynamic energy trading mechanism and associated cost decline. The results suggest that, due to the rapid decline in the costs of both renewables and batteries, along with the increased penetration of renewable energy in centralized systems, the free-market trading model could become widely accepted by 2060. Due to the rapid decrease of battery cost and increase in grid price, the EV owners will transit from cost payers to economic earners, along with the levelized cost of charging (LCOC) with EV energy sharing decreases from 2.24 CNY/kWh in 2020 to -1.27 CNY/kWh in 2060. Furthermore, retired EV battery cascade utilization in building energy storages can reduce the levelized electricity cost (LEC) of residential building owners. Overall, this study provides valuable insights into dynamic evolutions of free trading markets on renewable energy which significantly encourages spontaneous renewable investments and trading behaviours for the sustainable renewable energy deployment.</p>

If I had a billion US dollars I suspect I too would be very committed to a fully globalized world without any barriers and without any constraints on what I can do with my money and how I can make even more money. -- Mahathir Mohamad, Globalization and the New Realities (Kuala Lumpur: Pelanduk Publications, 2002), p. 35. The World After 11 September 2001 In early 2002, the collapse of the Argentine neoliberal economy almost wrecked the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR). The heightened global campaign against the al-Qaeda and Taliban-sponsored terrorism in the Pakistan-Afghanistan theatre, the Middle East, and now in Southeast Asia has deeply lacerated the fragile unity of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and has cast doubts about the viability of the long-awaited birth of the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA). (1) The election of a leftist union leader to the presidency of Brazil late in 2002 has fortified the xenophobic nationalist-populist opposition to neoliberalism in Latin America and has questioned the MERCOSUR's ability to revive the moribund Argentina. Earlier, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) helped Mexico to recover from its peso meltdown of 1994-95, but ASEAN has failed to do the same for Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia after the 1997-98 crisis. The bombing in Bali, Indonesia, on 12 October 2002 has exposed the ASEAN countries to the seeming invincibility of the home-grown Islamic radicalism, now firmly linked to the Middle Eastern, Pakistani-Afghan, and Southern Philippine varieties. The movement, which has become global, has been seeking to destroy at least four of the five linchpins of ASEAN and supplant them with a single, unified Islamic nation (Darul Islam). (2) This is a globalization, politico-religious and even ethnocentric, that Southeast Asia did not anticipate a few years ago. Authorities in Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia have stepped up the containment strategy by policing and arresting Islamic radicals. Security has once again become the principal driver that has replaced the regional growth and development strategy. Not since the Vietnam War has Southeast Asia been confronted with such a divisive force that can potentially render ASEAN/AFTA useless and fragmentary. The objective of this article is to argue that the security concerns in Southeast Asia after 11 September and the crumbling promise of neoliberalism in South America will effectively prevent the regions from realizing their dream of building the next level of growth-generating regional markets. In Latin America, the peril is the allure of the nationalist-populist and dirigiste past, while in Southeast Asia the clash between Islamic and non-Islamic political forces seems more than real. Security issues at home and abroad have diverted much of the attention and resources from the ASEAN/AFTA project, while the intense search for a new domestic political economy model by Argentina and Brazil will postpone any supranational project of MERCOSUR for a while. Problems with Small Regional Free Trade Arrangements (3) For the past four decades, the world has witnessed four different types of regional free trade agreements or regional market arrangements in the making: the union of mixed economies practising at once both neomercantilist and neoliberal political economy strategies, as in the European Union (EU); the socialist economies of the former Warsaw Pact countries in Eastern Europe; and a group of neomercantilist, state-driven economies like ASEAN and quasi-neoliberal MERCOSUR, both with an industrial policy and managed trade practices; and finally, the club of neoliberal and quasi-neoliberal countries like NAFTA with regulated but open free market systems. (4) The first (the EU) has become a viable external tariff union and free trade regional market with a single currency, a host of co-ordinated regionwide public policies in place, and an increasing proclivity to neoliberalism. …

The jury is out and the verdict is in, according to most leftist commentators on the African National Congress (ANC) government. The South African political leadership has forgotten its institution...

The UN World Water Development Report 2016, <i>Water and Jobs</i>: A Critical Review

This article is centered on the connections between Africa and Brazil during the era of the slave trade. Luso-Brazilian vessels transported as many as five million enslaved African men and women, which corresponds roughly to 40 percent of all captives shipped to the Americas. In Brazil, enslaved and freed Africans recreated ethnic, political, and cultural communities, but political and religious events in Africa continued to play an important role in shaping patterns of slave resistance. Throughout this period, a multiracial crew formed by traders of different ethnicities and legal status (enslaved, freed, and free) circulated across the Atlantic. Politically speaking, African and Luso-Brazilian authorities on both sides of the Atlantic engaged in diplomatic exchanges in order to guarantee the operation of the slave trade beginning in the middle of the eighteenth century. These diplomatic actions intensified in the first decades of the nineteenth century in the context of British measures to abolish the transatlantic slave trade. The bilateral approach expressed in some works listed in this bibliography challenges the Triangular model, very influential in English-speaking historiography, placing the connections between Brazil and Africa in the South Atlantic at the center. The article covers mostly the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries, although a few (very important) works stress the formation of these links as early as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The discovery of mining regions intensified the trade in enslaved Africans to Brazil in the eighteenth century as well as the commercial activities on the African coast, particularly in places such as the Bight of Benin and Angola. In this period the active participation of African freedmen can be observed in the business of slaving, and their role increased in the nineteenth century with the high demand for African labor due to the expansion of sugar and coffee plantations. But numerous freedmen and freedwomen returned to Africa to escape political and religious persecution, especially after the 1835 Muslim uprising in Bahia. Many others established Atlantic communities in West Africa. Brazilian historiography is well represented in the list due to the growth of the Brazilian production regarding Brazil-Africa links since 2000. The Bahian-based research group Escravidão e Invenção da Liberdade has been one of the most prominent in examining the connections between Brazil and West Africa in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Economists in the United States are strongly divided between those who advocate free markets and those who defend politically inspired regulations and policies. Almost all economists, whatever their political views, however, have traditionally agreed that the extension of free market principles internationally is desirable, that is, global free trade. To understand why there is there much greater agreement among economists about free trade in the international arena, we have to explore the religious, social, and cultural assumptions that lead them to believe that whether or not free trade serves the interests of any one country at a particular time, it leads -- sometimes ruthlessly -- the betterment of humanity worldwide.