I had a recent online discussion with someone regarding my position on limiting "Free Trade" to be with like markets. He called my approach mercantile, simplifying my ideal down to "Export more, import less". This impression led me to create this response and further develop my own philosophy. Natural Trade and Natural Markets are terms that I believe better suit the ideal of "free markets" and "free trade". In this excerpt I outline where this philosophy differs from the foundational trade winning of mercantilism and expresses a socio-economic explanation of how I came to think the way I do. I believe there is some value in this discussion, so I hope you enjoy this unedited section of our conversation.

It has nothing to do with mercantilism. Not in philosophy, at least. Perhaps the results may look somewhat similar on the surface, but the actuality wouldn't do anything to limit trade with like countries. This would limit both imports and exports, after all. Mercantilists want to maximize exports and minimize imports. This does neither. It is not designed to be protectionist of industries from competition, it is designed to protect the natural economic advantages held by countries and businesses.

For example, trade with China leads to a bunch of cheap stuff in the US and mitigates inflation due to access to those cheap goods. At the same time, it hurts US production not because they companies have any kind of absolute or competitive advantage, but because the country itself is willing to inflate its currency and provide subsidies to the companies in order to allow them to operate at what would otherwise be a loss and pay their employees an ever comparatively cheaper rate. This artificial competitive advantage leads to a focus of production within the foreign country and is a method that could be used to create industry specific advantages that lead to a total collapse of industry within the more free country.

It's like how Starbucks will buoy stores in an area with multiple local coffee shops and allow them to sell their products at a heavy discount and take on losses until the local store is out of business. Once that happens, they can jack up their prices as they gain a local monopoly from the prior anti-practices. Large enough corporations and countries alike can remove their competition after short-term sacrifices. That is why I say it is necessary to trade with like countries, ones that have the same trade practices as yours. It'll, ideally, result in net neutral influence on the natural market.

This is why I don't like the terms Free Trade or Free Market. Because those markets allow special interests to act with impunity towards them and take short-term actions that could result in the formation of monopolies with no real competition. It's the same reason large corporations love regulations, because they often create fixed costs that keep out the little guy or stifle there growth so substantially that they simply can't keep up with the bigger organizations, even if they're otherwise less efficient and effective in the creation and delivery of their product or service. If the most efficient and effective product or service is not able to succeed, then there is a clear flaw in that market.

Additionally, this expands beyond simple product creation and influences the culture of the societies involved. Socio-economics is a valuable term because it shows how economics can influence a society and vice versa. The practices of other countries will influence one another and can lead to great social change. This can be both beneficial and harmful. One such harm could be the desire to have more centralized control over the economy. More acceptance of social norms that are disparaging to the free markets that created the wealth in the first place. There is also the potential for economic psychological warfare and corruption. Here is a local example for you. Foreign investors are currently buying out interstates within Florida in order to create more toll roads. Nobody has been asking for them, but the government saw it as a good way to make money and now lanes are being closed off on my local highways to become toll exclusive and some roads are become toll to use at all. Now, maybe you see that as a good thing, but all it's doing is increasing the already existing traffic and making it more directly expensive to us, and are taxes have not gone down for it. Governmental and societal influence.

Now let's give other such examples. Look at housing in New York City. Price controls have already messed with the natural equilibrium of prices in New York. For every forced low-income housing project there is a counterbalancing increase in rent and ownership prices. On top of that, foreign investors who do not even live in the city buy out the best apartments and then hold onto them until the prices rise substantially enough for them to be able to sell for profit, creating a loop of billionaires essentially trading up the houses for more and more money. It's essentially the billionaires cryptocurrency playground, and it drives up the prices of the apartments around them as well. It brings up the average home cost and increase the price per square foot of the entire market. That's economic influence.

Looking at social influence we need look no farther than the NBA who will censure, apologize for, and, if able, force apologies from any employee or associate of the organization who dares to criticize China for what they're doing to the Uyghurs. If the US doesn't have many social controls and foreign nations who they trade with do, then the standards of those foreign nations who our international corporations do business with will operate under the social demands of the foreign nation and promote those social outlooks among their members and their consumers in their home country. After all, all companies want to be seen in a generally favorable light to continue to expand their market, so if they are appealing to the ideals of a foreign market, then they need to frame those ideals as positive should they ever be brought to light in any of their other operating markets.

This has already had heavy influence on the limiting of free speech on social media, the growth of foreign ideas about capitalism and socialism spreading across all different countries in the world, the authoritarian methods adopted to control covid being modeled after foreign approaches and promoted through government and media, all of whom have investors, donors, or advertisers that operate across all of these markets and tend to operate across all of these markets themselves.

I may have had a few mistakes in this comment as I wrote quite a bit and have been going back and forth between this and tasks at work, but I believe this is more than enough to justify the promotion of Natural Markets over "Free Markets". After all, we all know there is no such thing as "free"