What do you think the purpose of the British East India company was? They were trying to make a buck through trade with India. How exactly are you denying
that? It's even in the name. They ended up using force to install their own governors so they wouldn't be shut out local trade. Or is your plan to claim that the Britons of the time were
not true capitalists? Are you familiar with the history of the term "Banana Republic."
> I'm enslaving you and stealing your capital in the name of a free market system which believes every person is the owner and price arbitrar of their own labor.
Capitalism is a practical theory, you can't create your own utopian free market system where people's 'rights' to property are magically enforced.
There's no rule or capitalist ethos saying that I can't simply take your stuff if I have the resources to do so. In fact, as far as I can tell, the objective is for me to take your stuff. If I can trade nothing of mine for everything of yours, I'm simply maximizing my profits. Pat on the head for me! You need an outside theory to understand property rights, courtesy of someone like John Locke.
But saying Indians or Chinese didn't have a system of property rights or government before the Europeans saved them with capitalism, is wrong and a bit racist. As if everything in the rest of the world was awful before the white-man came and created civilization to save the savages.
> And free trade capitalism is just a tool, but a tool so powerful it lifts billions out of poverty even when they're ruled by totalitarian governments.
This is a rhetorical platitude. I'm supposed to believe it because you believe it, and you keep repeating it, but you haven't provided evidence that it's actually true.
> Or would you argue that the US's efforts to reform Chinese communism were more effective than it's efforts in engaging in free trade, in helping alleviate the suffering tens of millions?
I think the US has had little to do with China solving it's internal problems. (Which arguably, it still hasn't entirely solved, my pessimistic view is that it has simply taken a break). Also, let's talk about those factories with subhuman working conditions in Shenzhen where people commit suicide and make iPhones. Free trade, yay.
> We should all support freedom and democracy, but lets not kid ourself about the power of free trade markets to improve people's lives faster than simply advocating for the vote and free speech.
I'm not saying free trade is bad, but what I am saying is that it is terrible as a #1 guiding principle. You need something more substantive than that.