Max Hjelm: PO Tidholm guesses about customs and misses the important

The free trade system has led to closed factories in Sweden, while utilizing the population of poor countries. Everyone except the big companies is loser. Until now: Donald Trump’s trade war crushes the globalist, neoliberal system.

So you have to understand PO Tidholm’s text in DN (9/4). « The left, who should see opportunities in this mess, has so far only tuned into the grief choir, » he writes.

But really so lonely he is not: Aftonbladet’s cultural manager Karin Pettersson And the constant Göran Greider Has also taken the opportunity to carefully criticize free international markets. All three point out that Trump’s barriers to trade are bad but that one should introduce more good barriers to trade. Type.

I have a hard time See the allure by turning back the clock in Sweden. The fact that a large part of the population works in the service sector rather than in factories does not make us victims.

Exactly what the commercial friends want is unclear. But where Tidholm is cloudy in Vision, he is clear in criticism: the free trade of the last 90 years has created and maintains poverty.

Okay, but wait.

1950 lived half of the world’s population in Extreme poverty1990 it was below 40 percent, and nowadays for one tenth. IN real terms there has been a reduction from 2 billion to less than 700 million 1990-2024.

Over the past 30 years, Sweden has GDP per capita increased by than 50 percent, the proportion living in absolute poverty Halved.

The free trade system is an incomparable success story

At the same time as trade has become freer, both rich and poor countries have been better off. The free trade system is an incomparable success story.

Well, now you list figures on the total, might Karin Pettersson object: « But people’s lives are not lived on the total ». I know, but it is still better with a policy that reduces poverty in the world « on the total » than one who does not?

Yes we should be Better at helping those who lose jobs. Inequality increases in the world and the difficulty of organizing unionist in many countries is major problems. But it is excellent to combine free trade with robust welfare systems, which, among other things, Sweden shows.

Lesotho would not have been richer if international investments withdrew – people had just lost their jobs. The same goes for us in the rich world. Contrary to what Tidholm guesses, Americans also understand that trade is mutually positive – not even one fifth Believe that customs help their finances.

However much you can feel with nostalgic stories about former factories, an international and dynamic market is preferred. Now Trump is tearing down that world order. Jobs are threatened in Lesotho, USA and Sweden. It’s just to tune into the grief choir.

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