Daniel Griswold's Seven Moral Arguments For Free Trade?

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In the article, "Seven Moral Arguments for Free Trade," Daniel Griswold provides just what the title suggests, seven arguments on why free trade is a good thing to have in a country. Griswold is co-director of the Program on the American Economy and Globalization at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, which builds his credibility on the topic. His article was published in the CATO policy report, in which Griswold explains thoroughly why free trade is beneficial to all. The article explains how free trade benefits the individual in many ways, but also how it has a global impact as well. Griswold starts off by explaining that free trade allows for the expression of oneself and that free trade is superior to protectionism as it gives power to the people. Here in America we created this country to give power to the people and not to a centralized machine known as the government. Here Griswold does an effective job at explaining why protectionism is bad based on the unmoral fact in infringes on our rights as a nation, but also violates a basic …show more content…

He does not concede anything to supporters of protectionism, and he does not qualify any of his statements that well. Griswold carried a strong opinion throughout his piece that takes away from a good argument of being able to admit to the other side on some even ground, or at least acknowledge a claim from the other side of the argument. However, Griswold does make several points in the piece that when actually combined with facts could prove quite effective in persuading the audience to believe in Griswold 's opinions. Yet Griswold 's argument can stand on its own as long as facts aren 't needed to persuade his audience, but judging from the heavy amount of religion in the introduction to the piece, facts aren 't too important to his target

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