> Where by "economically free" we include such freedoms as "ability to deploy child labor", "ability to pay workers below subsistence", "ability to create the equivalent of company towns", "ability to dump toxic waste into rivers", "ability to blot out the sun with airborne waste", and "availability of vast pool of rural poor workers".

You can't deny that this is indirectly partly due to America's demand for cheap goods that China provides. Look, United States has already passed this stage -- we have had dark spots in our history too, with crimes among the most heinous in world history: slavery, genocide, child labor. We've mostly improved... and I expect China will improve as well as its populace becomes more learned and starts demanding more freedoms.

But at any rate. I have one question for you tptacek: don't you agree that the extent of child labor, improper wages, toxic dumps, etc. taking place in China would be considerably less if Americans conscientiously chose to not fund these operations by essentially doing business with them? In other words, isn't America -- and the people of America -- culpable of these crimes that you make note of to a non-zero degree?