Recall that hurricane Mitch just killed over 10,000 people and devastated several national economies. To bring human economic activity into line with Earth's limits, we will need to understand the forces that are pushing us in wrong directions. If there is one thing that most economists, politicians, and business leaders agree on, it is the desirability of free trade. Daly, on the other hand, says free trade undermines environmental standards, drives down wages, weakens our capacity to do better, and undermines our sense of community.
Free trade is the absence of barriers to international trade.
A third limit on free trade might restrict the amounts of foreign capital that could flow into a country. Among economists, free trade has taken on the character of a religious faith, its power to do good unquestioned. Among traditional economists, Herman Daly is viewed as a heretic. Products from the second country will sell for less and will tend to drive competitors in the first country out of business. Thus there is a clear conflict between a national policy of internalizing environmental and social insurance costs and a policy of free trade.