Hurray for Brad DeLong
The only one out of the major left wing economist bloggers who's still willing to stand up for free trade!
Among the others, it's not that they are against it, of course, it's just that they... have "concerns". But find me a policy, regarding anything, and I'll find you some "concerns". Current going rate is 2.50$ per relevant "concern". If you buy in bulk you can get a whole ideology at a discount, self contradictory though it may be.
Among the others, it's not that they are against it, of course, it's just that they... have "concerns". But find me a policy, regarding anything, and I'll find you some "concerns". Current going rate is 2.50$ per relevant "concern". If you buy in bulk you can get a whole ideology at a discount, self contradictory though it may be.
posted by YouNotSneaky! at 6:57 PM
12 Comments:
On this topic I shamelessly promote the "uneconomic" approach based on process rather than outcome rules: free men should be able to freely associated, even when motivated by pecuniary interests. Come what may.
You seem to be saying that, in order to be truly in favor of something, you have to refuse to state any counterarguments unless you can comfortably refute them (though apparently, since you cite Brad’s post, a specious refutation is sufficient). I’m not even convinced that the pro-trade position benefits politically from such attempts to sweep under the rug the distributional implications of liberalized trade for a country like the US. Even if economists could maintain an intellectually dishonest united front against trade restrictions, wouldn’t that tend to undermine their credibility? If we can identify bad distributional consequences, that identification forms the basis for advocating a potentially politically feasible compromise (e.g. make taxes more progressive while liberalizing trade). The “concerns” exist politically whether or not economists recognize them, but kind of like with alcoholism, admitting you have a problem is the first step to getting better.
(See also my comment on Alex Tabarrok’s post.)
Knzn;
Hmmm, and you seem to be saying that the question of emphasis doesn't matter. Say we agree that the effect of trade is "aggregate income with some redistribution" and we want to convey this wisdom to the general public. Welp, the public is already pretty well convinced of the second part and generally disbelieves the first part. If the commentators on your typical trade-related thread are anything to go by, the typical belief of the public is that the effect of trade is "aggregate losses and redistribution towards the rich, and anyone who says otherwise must be paid off by the corporations and the Chinese, and hates children to boot".
Why waste time reinforcing the second part (which does happen to be correct), rather then emphasizing the first part (which is also correct)? It's feeding the ignorance, the willful ignorance.
And of course this isn't to bring in the third, moral, part of trade that both DeLong and Tabarrox emphasize.
Also one should consider the audience. If these concerns were expressed over at Reason's Hit-n-Run, or in the Economist, or over at Gabriel's I'd be much happier with'em. But where they're at, often they just add to the noise. So you need DeLong, or on his good days, Krugman, telling like it is since they're more likely to reach the relevant audience.
Certainly emphasis matters, but emphasizing the aggregate gains while ignoring the distributional effects is a dubious polemical strategy. The public obviously doesn’t find the Ricardian model convincing. It’s easier to argue against what they’re wrong about if we concede that they’re right about some things.
From a nationalist-utilitarian point of view, I think there’s a pretty strong case to be made that trade actually reduces national welfare when the comparatively scarce factor is absolutely plentiful. If I were asked to make the decision personally, I’d be in favor of trade anyway, since I’m a utilitarian but not a nationalist. But politics takes place in a national context. I’m a lot more comfortable saying, “This will result in some upward redistribution, but we can fix that by tinkering with the tax system and end up with something that’s unambiguously good for the country,” than saying, “Pay no attention to the man behind the screen! The wizard of trade is great and powerful!”
It occurs to me now that free trade is a good reason to support the (moderate) left. The left has no qualms about government-sponsored redistribution, so it can comfortably support policies that render trade unambiguously beneficial. The right on the other hand finds itself in the rather uncomfortable position of having to choose between free trade and a relatively more equal income distribution. Right-wing politicians often find it convenient to choose the latter, using a nationalistic justification for an effectively anti-trade stance that allows them to avoid being voted out of office.
(Put it this way: If Brad’s arguments don’t even convince someone like me, who is on the same side, how are they ever going to convince someone who – like most Americans, it would appear – was against trade in the first place?)
One can argue in favor of free trade in an intellectually honest way, even for a lay audience. Krugman did exactly that in Pop Internationalism.
"It occurs to me now that free trade is a good reason to support the (moderate) left. The left has no qualms about government-sponsored redistribution, so it can comfortably support policies that render trade unambiguously beneficial."
That was actually one of Brad's points.
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