Marx on free trade

[William S. Lear]

On Monday, September 27, 1999 at 21:22:31 (-0700) Brad De Long writes:
>...
>I like labor standards and environmental standards when they are 
>devices to induce progress in other countries. I don't like them when 
>they are excuses for protection.
>
>The line, I admit, is fine, and its location changes day by day...

How can you label labor and environmental standards "excuses for
protection", therefore something illiberal and to be avoided?  You
imply that these standards induce the opposite of "progress" (capital
formation?) "in other countries".  How is protecting labor and the
environment antithetical to progress?  Are you a comparative advantage
weenie as well as a neoliberal scum?

Bill