uot; in the world market by reducing tariffs, privatizing state enterprises, and relaxing labor and environmental standards. The results have enlarged profits for foreign investors, but have offered pittances to the laborers, provoking a strong backlash from the civil society. The developed nations must modify their economic practices and the least developed countries must carry out better negotiations so that the third world can be fully integrated into the world economy.
             Standard economic theory holds that a completely liberalized global market is the most efficient way to foster growth, because each country specializes in producing the goods and services in which it has a comparative advantage. However, this is not always the case, reducing trade barriers and opening markets do not necessarily generate development, as has been the case in the LAC countries, due to the advantage that the developed countries (MDCs) have over the developing nations (LDCs). The rich countries and large corporations dominate the global marketplace and create very unequal relations of power and information. As a result, trade is inherently unequal and poor countries often experience not rising well being but increasing unemployment, poverty, and income inequality.
             An additional problem is that free trade is not equally free. The United States (US) and the European Union (EU) urge the LDCs to reduce their trade barriers and open up their markets to foreign products. But the agricultural subsidies and other trade barriers in the United States and throughout the European Union prevent poor countries from gaining equal access to the most important markets. So, while the LDCs open up their own markets to US and EU exports, the US and EU do not completely open up their markets to the exports of the LAC countries. As the MDCs condemn the LDCs protectionist economies, the MDCs fail to admit that they sheltered their own economies by protection when ...