I'm Glad He's Already Tenured

I believe in free trade, which is to say that I ultimately believe that, in nearly all cases, individual human beings or individual companies know what is best for them.  I further believe that these same individuals and companies following their own self interest ultimately provides collective benefits to everyone.  The changes created by this process of self interest and unrestricted or, free, trade lead to a more prosperous and ideally more peaceful world.  However, anyone who has ever debated this topic with me recognizes that I also understand that these changes don't take place immediately.  In an economics textbook, resources are transferred immediately and anyone who is adversely affected by these changes instantaneously finds new options for employment or consumption.  But the real world of course doesn't work that way.  For some people, the transition is wrenchingly painful and devastatingly lengthy.  For others, the speed of the changes is simply too fast.  And to make matters worse, economists have often ignored these concerns and continued to promulgate the unequivocal desirability of free trade.  No more.  Finally, one notable professor is breaking ranks and discussing why he is hesitant about unrestricted free trade in the modern age.  Read the whole column.  Then read it again.

Comments

[~R.]

And that gets to the definition of free trade and the perceptions by parts of the world that are just being opened up to it. I've said before that we have a tendency to call it 'free trade' when it's really a thousand-page list of regulations that are anything but free. I'm not denying that free trade exists–you know I only play a socialist on TV–but I am denying that many people, especially in the developing world, can tell a difference. 'This is free trade?' they say when their environment is being degraded, their wages are stagnant, their children are stuck. 'Then I don't want it.' And the same happens here, which is why we have populism on a resurgence that hasn't been seen since the 'Cross of Gold' speech.

'They've done what they were told to do: They went to college and prepared for well-paid careers with bountiful employment opportunities. But now their bosses are eyeing legions of well-qualified, English-speaking programmers and accountants in India, for example, who will happily work for a fraction of what Americans earn. Such prospective competition puts a damper on wage increases. And if the jobs do move offshore, displaced American workers may lose not only their jobs but also their pensions and health insurance. These people can be forgiven if they have doubts about the virtues of globalization.'

Which is why Friedman pisses me off sometimes. He believes in the pony so much that he doesn't notice that it has anemia (do horses get anemia?), or even wants to. Maybe it's that I tend to look at the presentation of things more than the wiring underneath (hello, designer!), but this is not just theory. This is nuts and bolts, life and death stuff. And it needs to be presented honestly. Which is why I applaud this guy for speaking out now. As long as free trade, in the minds of millions across swaths of the world, and our own electorate, is synonymous with military power, rampant CEOs and false promises of immediate riches for everybody under the sun, we'll never truly see it in our lifetime.