Tag: free trade

Clawing Back draws on a rich ethnography of the human relationships at the centre of the redistribution of wealth. The book shows how people use wages, welfare and debt to build social relations and market futures. They also use these resources to engage with the state and to convert between commodified and non-commodified relationships.

The South African Revenue Service (SARS) announced that it will impose a 45% import tax on goods that cost R500 or less, imported from China through online retailers such as Shein and Temu. Unions and businesses praise this as a ‘levelling of the playing field’, but for the consumer it simply translates to higher prices.

If South Africa was a horse, we would probably shoot it. But it is instead a one-horse country, and we have to find a way to save it. Imminent national collapse looms. We know we cannot continue with the African National Congress (ANC). They actually deserve to be shot.

Dumping is described as international price discrimination, wherein a product is cheaper in the importing market than it is in the market that is exporting said product. This practice is frowned upon, as exemplified by calls to curb dumping through measures like tariffs or outright bans on certain imports.

2020 will be remembered as the year where the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the world taking the lives of many. This human tragedy was accompanied by an economic crisis as global economies shut down in an attempt to slow down the spread of the disease.

There is no denying that we live in the most technologically advanced era the Earth has ever seen and this is due to property rights and free trade. Removing restrictions on trade between individuals in a country is important, but removing restrictions on trade between individuals in different countries is arguably even more important given the enormous size of the global market compared to any single country’s domestic market.