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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.

He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.

In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.

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Under communism my immediate neighborhood had 1 greengrocery, 1 convenience store, 1 movie-theater, 1 milk and milk products shop, 1 meat and meat products shop, 1 bread shop, and 1 pharmacy. There was also 1 hairdresser, 1 plumber, 1 electrician and 1 TV and radio repair services. In additional we had 1 party club, 1 social-political club, 1 communist youth club, and 1 police officer. People were working outside the neighborhood but all their basic needs could have been satisfied without going out. There was no need to have more than one of everything because the second of the kind would have been the exact replica of the first. Communists just hated the idea that the citizens would prefer one instead of another goods and service. Hence there was no choice at all.

The end of communism brought substantial changes in my neighborhood. Some of the political clubs were closed; other parties' clubs proliferated. The movie-theater was closed after a brief attempt to become a bingo; the services migrated toward other areas. The number of shops and hairdressers increased dramatically. What was needed more became more abundant, what was needed less went to other neighborhoods. Some people lost their jobs that they occupied due to the previous monopolistic positions; others found new jobs. Some changed their occupation; others kept theirs but changed their location. Life became more interesting and far less predictable.

Every time I hear about new ideas about free trade between nations this reminds me about my native neighborhood. All arguments for and against are basically the same as those I heard when I was in my early 20s. The proponents are always pointing at the relative advantage that ultimately will bring more money to everyone involved. The opponents are basically talking about the short-term social price, about the inconveniences for those that will lose their jobs. It's a game that opposes the fear to the greed. Do we have to risk what we have in order to get more?

The economic history of the world shows that the real economic progress begins with the creation of national markets and with abolishment of the local tariff barriers. No nation has managed for a long period to go above a certain level of economic development without such freedom of goods, services, capitals and labor. The communists tried to regulate this process and today countries like North Korea and Cuba are the textbook examples where this policy may lead. Which doesn't say that opening markets is the only sufficient precondition for economic abundance.

CAFTA-DR that will include, besides the U.S., countries like Guatemala, Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic, won't be any exception from the rule. It will be a short-term tragedy for many people and unfortunately most of them are even now too poor to cope with the consequences. They will look like the only bread seller of my childhood that suddenly got surrounded by at least ten more, everyone trying to bring down the prices as much as possible. Most of these ten new comers on the market failed, but they knew what they were risking and went elsewhere to try again. For this one that has sold bread for decades without any competition, this was a real tragedy, because he couldn't see himself doing something different.

Many of the countries that will form CAFTA-DR are indeed very poor, except Costa Rica. They may benefit greatly from exporting freely to the U.S., but some people will have to find other jobs or other locations to practice it. Making cost-benefits assessments of these new arrangements, it's also useful to compare the CAFTA-DR with the previous attempts to get out of the poverty. Many of these countries have a long and bloody history of right- and left-wing dictatorships that promised economic miracles before failing to produce any substantial result. Like a patient that needs a life-saving operation the main question shouldn't be whether or not this operation endangers the life in mid-term. The only point that matters is whether or not there is another less risky intervention that may save the patient, meaning to get him out of perpetual poverty. This is the weakest link in the argumentation chain of those who oppose the free trade anywhere in the world. They know what they are against and why, but they can't offer anything better instead without trying to change the whole international system.

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