Is Free Trade Good or Bad?

We rather take for granted the maxim that free trade is a good thing. This article from the BBC's Andrew Walker might just, at the margin make you think again. It makes it clear that economic theory is unequivocal: free trade is good for the whole, but that this doesn't mean that it's good for every individual.

And then it goes on looking at whether or not, even accepting for economy-wide gains, the losers from free trade are adequately compensated, and it concludes that rarely are. As Lawrence Mischel of the Economic Policy Institute, is quoted as saying that "The winners have never tried to fully compensate the losers, so let's stop claiming that trade benefits us all."