Criticisms of Current Forms of Free Trade — Global Issues

Criticisms of Current Forms of Free Trade — Global Issues:

 [T]he emergence of capitalism represents a culture that is in many ways the most successful that has ever been deployed in terms of accommodating large numbers of individuals in relative and absolute comfort and luxury. It has not been as successful, however, in integrating all in equal measure, and its failure here remains on of its major problems. It has solved the problems of feeding large numbers of people (although certainly not all), and it has provided unprecedented advances in health and medicine (but, again, not for all). It has promoted the development of amazingly complex technological instruments and fostered a level of global communication without precedent. It has united people in common pursuits as has no other culture. Yet it remains to be seen when the balance sheet is tallied whether capitalism represents the epitome of “progress” that some claim.

— Richard H. Robbins, Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, (Allyn and Bacon, 1999), pp. 11–12