Both Parties Wrong on 'Globalization'

John Stossel has a column that correctly calls out Joe Biden and Donald Trump as both being wrong about free trade, which both parties smear as "globalization" when it's convenient.

The piece briefly debunks five common myths, and I was glad to see Imports take jobs from Americans addressed as Myth No. 2:

This is the evil face of world-wide central planning, not of world-wide free trade. (Image by World Economic Forum, via Wikimedia Commons, license.)

I say to [the Cato Institute's Scott] Lincicome, "Some people do lose jobs."

"True," he replies, "We lose about 5 million jobs every month."

But trade isn't the main reason. "Jobs are lost due to ... changing consumer tastes and from innovation. We make more stuff with fewer workers. That's productivity."

Productivity increases are good.

Trade and productivity improvements are reasons why the number of Americans who do have jobs has risen.

"We're at historically high manufacturing job openings," says Lincicome, "Manufacturers in the United States say they can't find enough workers."

The piece avoids putting off readers with detailed descriptions of the economic laws that make free trade a good thing, opting for more colloquial descriptions.

For example, the Law of Comparative Advantage, which explains how free trade permits a sort of international division of labor, isn't stated explicitly. Instead the piece relies on an analogy of our national "trade deficit" to the "deficit" we all have, as individuals, with our grocery stores.

There are, of course multiple ways the smear "globalization" could be addressed. For example, central planning via "free trade agreements" is not actually the same thing as free trade. And international agreements that damage the economy, such as the Paris Climate Accords, often get lumped together with misconceptions about free trade when populists attack "globalization." Those go beyond the scope of the piece, but that's fine: There is an incredible amount of ignorance about basic economics out there: One has to start somewhere...

-- CAV