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Friday, June 06, 2008
Is there a moral distinction between trade and immigration?
Why does the cause of trade not resonate with the same egalitarian and libertarian emotions as the cause of immigration?
Churches shelter immigrants from deportation in the name of charity and justice. Immigrant rights groups fight to unite families separated by national boundaries. Mass demonstrations are held to protect immigrants from deportation. But, to my knowledge, no church or organization that identifies itself as "progressive" has, in the name of justice or charity, smuggled goods into the country manufactured by the immigrants who support their families by laboring in their own countries. No progressive group has staged a rally to reduce tariffs on foreign-made goods. Why not? Polls suggest that members of the Democratic Party are consistently more sympathetic towards immigration than international trade. Why?
Foreign nationals who cross the U.S. border in search of decent-paying work do so because decent-paying jobs are scarce in their own country. Those jobs are scarce because capital and consumer dollars are scarcer abroad than they are in the United States. If one regards the struggle to gain access to consumers and capital as justified when that struggle is conducted by means of migration, then why is it not equally justified when it is conducted by means of export? What difference does it make, as an ethical matter, whether the mountain of capital and consumer dollars comes to the foreign-born worker, or the foreign-born worker comes to the mountain of capital and consumer dollars?
I would think that trade would be more appealing than immigration to progressive supporters of immigrants' rights. After all, addressing poverty through immigration forces the migrant to move long distances, tearing families apart. Trade allows the would-be migrant to stay put, with family and friends, increasing wealth without the disruption of departure.
So why is there no progressive free trade movement?
One obvious answer: Immigrants who work in the United States labor according to U.S. rules. Thus, immigration, in theory, does not undermine the domestic regulatory framework of minimum wage and maximum hours legislation. Labor abroad, by contrast, might not be subject to equally stringent laws: Exploited in unregulated working conditions, such workers' cheap goods could undermine U.S. regulations when exported to the United States.
But this answer is too pat. Consumer groups could agree to smuggle in "fair exchange" goods manufactured abroad under humane conditions. (Given differences in the cost of living and costs of production, those conditions could not sensibly be identical to the regulatory conditions prevailing in the United States. But there are ILO standards that could serve as a proxy, as my colleague Rob Howse has noted in his scholarship. See, e.g., Michael J. Trebilcock & Robert Howse, Trade Policy and Labor Standards, 14 Minn. J. Global Trade 261, 270 (2005)). Progressives could protest all tariffs that do not serve to exclude "unfairly" maunfactured goods. Moreover, immigration surely has a non-trivial downward effect on domestic wages, if the laws of supply and demand have not been suspended for labor.
So why no call from progressives for freer trade to correspond to the call for liberalized immigration? Why do we not see a sanctuary movement to evade customs laws or provide legal defense for importers stopped at ports of entry by U.S. customs officials? Why no mass demonstrations denouncing tariffs?
As a libertarian on both trade and immigration, I find the distinction a bit perplexing. But I freely confess that I might most certainly be missing something. So my question is not sarcastically rhetorical but sincerely a request for information: What's the latest thinking among progressives who favor immigration but frown on trade? (Maybe there is a progressive movement to increase trade among nations, and I am simply unaware of its existence).
Posted by Rick Hills on June 6, 2008 at 12:50 PM in Current Affairs | Permalink
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Comments
Progressives do object to some kinds of trade restrictions (the kinds that clearly do make the global poor worse off) -- in particular, a lot of progressives object to agricultural subsidies in the U.S. and the EU. As for the rest, well, I hate to break it to you, but we happen to disagree that it'll make the global poor better off.
Posted by: Paul Gowder | Jun 6, 2008 1:55:23 PM
I would think it would be pretty hard for someone to say that free trade doesn't make the global poor better off, since hundreds of millions of Chinese and Indians have been lifted from the most desperate poverty, in substantial degree due to free trade.
Posted by: frankcross | Jun 6, 2008 1:59:38 PM
Speaking as a Marxist of sorts (influenced by the so-called 'analytical Marxists' and fond of much in Liberal political philosophy: R.G. Peffer's Marxism, Morality, and Social Justice (1990) exemplies much of the best from both traditions) on such matters, I'm for increased trade if by "free" trade we mean trade that is simultaneously compatible with "fair" trade (hence the Doha round of negotiations at the WTO, which of course failed to resolve the pressing issues raised by the 'developing nations'). Unlike many on the Left, I happen to believe the WTO can grow and develop in a manner in which fairness is a primary objective, indeed, there is evidence that this is in fact happening. Incidentally, few on the Left probably are aware that Marx was for "free trade" in his time, at least in principle when not in practice, as is made clear in a book by the economist Meghnad Desai, Marx's Revenge: The Resurgence of Capitalism and the Death of Statist Socialism (2002).
One problem here of course is that trade issues are immensely complicated and for Leftists (I find the label 'Progressive' to wishy-washy) trade liberalization has not, historically, necessarily led to gains in egalitarian justice. As to the nature of the issues involved, and ways in which the WTO could be reformed (along with the World Bank and the IMF), from a Left perspective, please see, respectively, Darrel Mollendorf's essay, "The World Trade Organization and Egalitarian Justice," and Robert Hockett's piece, "Three (Potential) Pillars of Transnational Economic Justice: The Bretton Woods Institutions as Guarantors of Global Equal Treatment and Market Completion," in Christian Barry and Thomas W. Pogge, eds., Global Institutions and Responsibilities: Achieving Global Justice (2005), pp. 141-158 and 90-123.
It's nice to see a favorable reference to the ILO. On the effectiveness of ILO standards, as proxy or otherwise, one might read Bob Hepple's Labour Laws and Global Trade (2005).
[Those relatively new to this discussion could begin by looking at a book we've mentioned on this blog before: Brian Barry and Robert E. Goodin, eds., Free Movement: Ethical Issues in the Transnational Migration of People and of Money (1992).]
Posted by: Patrick S. O'Donnell | Jun 6, 2008 2:16:02 PM
I would second Professor Cross's statement with two observations:
(1) The vast majority of the citizens of under-developed nations seem to BELIEVE that trade makes them better off. The Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project reports that "[m]ore than 90 percent of the public in Senegal, Ivory Coast, and Kenya reported positive feelings about free trade. Eight in 10 Africans surveyed said they believed that trade was having a positive impact on their country's economic development." http://www.policyinnovations.org/ideas/briefings/data/trade_aground
(2) The vast majority of economists believe that trade improves the welfare of people in under-developed nations. (Some, like Alan Blinder, have argued that free trade would lower wages and reduce certain jobs in the United States. but he did not argue that it would reduce welfare in under-developed nations).
In light of these two points, then it is at least worth considering the possibility that freer trade benefits the under-developed world. In which case, my question calls for a better answer than Paul Gowder gives it. And even if one remains unconvinced that freer trade benefits under-developed nations, the evidence suggesting that freer trade helps poor nations is at least as good as the evidence suggesting that immigration helps poor migrants. So my question still remains: Why are progressives willing to reject the views of economists and the residents of poorer nations themselves about the benefits of trade but do not adopt this (paradoxically paternalistic AND anti-academic) attitude towards immigration?
Posted by: Rick Hills | Jun 6, 2008 2:21:08 PM
Many progressives oppose "free trade" because the agreements do not enforce what they see as sufficient labor or environmental standards. This is a critical distinction between buying a foreign good and welcoming a foreign immigrant--the former is not subject to these standards/protections, the latter is.
Posted by: Ryan H | Jun 6, 2008 5:14:45 PM
Whoops, missed the post-jump paragraphs.
Posted by: Ryan H | Jun 6, 2008 5:16:31 PM
Rick, your question does not deserve more of an answer than I gave it, for the simple reason that it's presented in a stunningly -- embarrassingly! -- tendentious and simplistic way. You don't seem to be willing to recognize that the question is actually complicated, and that there are real debates about the benefits of freer trade for the globally worst-off.
Read some of Joseph Stiglitz's work on globalization, and perhaps you'll realize that there are multiple positions on the matter -- even among the top echelon of academic economists.
Also consider that improving the welfare of poorer *nations* isn't the only question. The more pressing question, for a liberal egalitarian, is what will happen to the welfare of the poorest *people* in those nations. Trade that makes the elites in poor nations rich, while doing nothing for the poor in those nations, is hardly something to be striven for.
Posted by: Paul Gowder | Jun 6, 2008 6:19:54 PM
Also, Rick, you missed the first sentence of my comment. Many of us do oppose non-free trade practices, when we're convinced that they do make the poorest worse off. Like agricultural subsidies in wealthy nations. So it's not just some kind of knee-jerk opposition to trade that you're dealing with here. Credit us with some intelligence, at least.
Posted by: Paul Gowder | Jun 6, 2008 6:32:20 PM
Rick - I think the most important difference to think about between migration and the movement of goods is where the benefit is going. In the case of migration, immigrants are seeing direct benefits through higher wages, which they in turn either use to support their family that they brought with them or return home in the form of remittances. In the case of trade, exporters in the home country are the beneficiaries. These exporters are most certainly not the same people that would immigrate and seek shelter in churches. These exporters, in most cases, already have established income in their home countries and, considering they are exporting to the U.S., have established some semblence of a living. Not to say that they will not immigrate one day, but for now they are getting by. Accordingly, the moral affinity toward protecting immigrants in this country, usually impoverished or nearly impoverished immigrants, makes sense as compared to the already semi- or fully-successful exporter. Just my two cents.
Kevin Fandl
Posted by: Kevin Fandl | Jun 6, 2008 8:01:19 PM
Kevin Fandl's comment seems extremely thoughtful to me. But I wonder if it truly distinguishes migration from trade. When more immigrants enter a country's workforce, is it not plausible to believe that they will reduce the price of labor (on the theory that an increased supply would tend to reduce price)? And would not the shareholders of the companies that employed those laborers and/or the consumers who buy the products that they produce reap some of the benefit from this added competition in the labor market?
So the migrant (or would-be migrant) is not the exclusive beneficiary of free migration any more than the laborer is the exclusive beneficiary of free trade.
As for Paul Gowder's somewhat irascible reply, it was not my intention to write a brief in favor of free trade. Undoubtedly, one can imagine costs from free trade. My only point is that it is just as easy to imagine costs from free migration: In either case, the putative beneficiary might end up worse off. Why, then, demonstrate in favor of free migration but not in favor of free trade? Why not treat both as technical and difficult policy questions?
Of course, if one were dogmatically sure that free trade always left employees in underdeveloped countries worse off and migration always left them better off, then I could understand drawing a sharp distinction between trade and migration. But surelyno one has made, or could plausibly make, such a claim.
Incidentally, Paul Gowder is, I think, mistaken about Stiglitz's position. Stiglitz has never suggested that the United States' opening up ITS market to goods from poorer nations would not benefit the latter: To the contrary: As I understand Stiglitz, he has disputed the "Washington Consensus" only in questioning whether under-developed countries should eliminate THEIR trade barriers, on the theory that exports from the developed world might disrupt the under-developed economy. He has never questioned the overwhelming economists' consensus that under-developed countries are benefited by exporting goods to developed countries. (See, in particular, chapters 2 and 6 of his recent book, "Fair Trade for All").
So, under Stiglitz's argument, churches really ought to smuggle in cheap goods from, say, India -- at least, if the goal is to help out poor Indians, right? That is, OUR tariffs are indisputably a burden on the welfare of people in India, Kenya, etc.?
Again, no need to get angry: It really is just a question.
Posted by: Rick Hills | Jun 6, 2008 9:02:16 PM
Rick, my apologies if I read you as giving more of a brief than you'd intended. There are two reasons I read you that way. The first is that what you wrote is easily given that interpretation (characterizing the position of those who disagree as "paradoxically paternalistic AND anti-academic," for example, is hardly the tone of someone who is willing to listen to argument).
The second, which isn't so much your fault, is that the free-traders in the world tend to assume an incredibly condescending and insulting attitude toward anyone with even the slightest bit of skepticism. Even among economists, this contemptuous attitude is becoming something of an epidemic (e.g., this critique Stiglitz and Charlton (pdf), which is all too eager to fling characterizations like, inter alia, "touching naïveté" and "bizarre.") When speaking to non-economists, matters become even worse, and one often hears absurd accusations, such as that the non-economist is incapable of understanding the law of comparative advantage.
That being said, I really think you're listening to the wrong progressives. As I've been trying to say, many progressives do support some forms of trade liberalization, on a case-by-case basis. Many do support the reduction of our tarrifs. (I again point you to the farm subsidies as the paradigm case.)
Also, progressives have multiple commitments, some of which come into conflict. For example, progressives are concerned with domestic as well as global justice, and it might be cause for concern if, as you noted, cheap labor abroad injures the working class in the U.S. And there are perfectly plausible reasons to think the injury is greater from trade than from immigration (e.g., because the wages abroad are lower than the U.S. minimum, leading to more substitution as it becomes economical for more countries to replace U.S. workers).
Likewise, there might be good reasons to be concerned about the environmental impact of shifting a lot of production to developing countries who use dirtier power sources and then transporting goods on carbon-fueled ships across the world willy-nilly.
Posted by: Paul Gowder | Jun 6, 2008 9:27:33 PM
When the progressive-type politicians meet with blue-collar labor unions and the like, you bet they get pretty anti-immigration. Or at least they put on that show.
Posted by: Lawyer | Jun 6, 2008 10:21:00 PM
Um.
Isn't the obvious point that immigration deals with actual human beings in the present moment, whereas trade issues concern systems of impact on people over time? What's more, we're not even sure of precisely what impacts different trade policies will have, as shown by the range of comments so far. We can be fairly confident of the impact of deporting the impoverished migrant worker who paid all his savings to be transported into the U.S. illegally, or the one who swims the Rio Grande, or the one who crosses the border in isolated areas at risk of his own death.
How is it possible that smart, sophisticated people can fail to grasp that what's at stake are individual human lives in the immediate moment? When the data on trade policies are as unequivocal as a living, breathing human being sheltered in a church in Southern California, talk to me about immigration versus trade.
Until then, I respectfully suggest you pull your head out of... your books...
Posted by: LHD | Jun 6, 2008 10:25:44 PM
Yes, the parenthetical about being paternalistic may have sounded more snide than I intended: I meant only to suggest that it would dogmatic to suggest that foreign workers derive zero benefit from exporting stuff to the U.S. So unilateral free trade into the U.S. from the under-developed world ought to have a lot of moral resonance -- enough, perhaps, to inspire a letter-writing campaign for the United States' unilateral removal of tariffs on, say, African textiles. Stiglitz would have no objection there, on welfare grounds.
And I am heartened to hear that progressives object to farm subsidies. (Of course, one does not often see passionate mass demonstrations against them along the lines of the May Day demonstrations, even though, as you note, it is likely that they have a pernicious economic effect on under-developed nations).
Posted by: Rick Hills | Jun 6, 2008 10:25:47 PM
K. Fandl wrote:
"In the case of migration, immigrants are seeing direct benefits through higher wages, which they in turn either use to support their family that they brought with them or return home in the form of remittances. In the case of trade, exporters in the home country are the beneficiaries. These exporters are most certainly not the same people that would immigrate and seek shelter in churches."
I don't know about that. If someone is unemployed in a foreign country, but then demands for that country's goods rise such that he obtains employment, is he not a direct beneficiary of trade? Millions of people in India (for example) would certainly argue that they have benefited from a more open global economy. Obviously the "exporters" will benefit as well, but, then the same principle could be applied to workers in the U.S.
Posted by: andy | Jun 7, 2008 12:20:14 PM
The original question asked about a free trade "movement." Movements are often reserved for things not already being pushed hard by the establishment or those with power. Why would free trade need a movement?
But the question has a valid point. Just because global businesses stand to gain the most, and therefore have spearheaded the movement for free trade, does not mean that foreign "workers" do not also benefit.
Many businesses are also for increased immigration, but it caries far more costs than outsourcing, social and economic, so it is not part of the establishment movement. Progressives, possibly, step in to fill this void. Immigrants have no establishment champions. That is often the role that progressives play - they support things that are "correct," whether those things profit the powers that be or not. By analogy, some groups criticize U.S. actions not because they are the worst or most deserving or criticism, but because others are already busy informing us of the remainder of the world's actions worthy of criticism.
Posted by: b | Jun 7, 2008 3:04:40 PM
Those just seeing this or still reading may be interested in a guest editorial in today's NYT by Tyler Cowen (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/business/08view.html?ex=1370577600&en=cb2502f9a4cb69be&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink), which makes some claims about where the benefit is going and the effect on U.S. poor.
Nothing especially new in the argument, but interesting in light of this discussion. Those inclined to view it as (a) self-evidently correct, (b) stunningly -- embarrassingly! -- tendentious and simplistic, (c) part of an incredibly condescending and insulting epidemic, (d) irascible, or (e) refreshingly (or regrettably) anti-intellectual, have a choice of forum question, since Tyler also has a blog.
Posted by: Edward Swaine | Jun 8, 2008 2:20:28 PM
Rick (and others in the same vein), it is certainly arguable that more open trade can promote indirect or even (as Andy suggests) direct benefits through increased demand and wages. The problem with that suggestion, however, is that the vast supply of labor in most developing countries will work against immediate wage gains. Increased demand for goods produced in the developing country will provide additional profits for the exporting employer, and perhaps for input suppliers, but will have little immediate effect on workers as their jobs are quite easily replaceable. In my experience (limited to Latin America), supply of labor so outstrips demand for labor that any change in the wage rate for workers would be a rarity simply based on increased foreign demand for goods. Immigration, on the other hand, offers a competitive wage, in most cases, that far surpasses that available in the home country of the worker. Demand for cheap labor in the United States, unlike in developing countries, is quite high and tighter immigration policies are reducing supply. Immigrants have a much better opportunity to earn money working abroad than they do waiting for their home country employers to boost their salary.
Posted by: Kevin Fandl | Jun 8, 2008 2:47:29 PM
This works both ways, of course: if you favor free trade, then you had better be put on the spot as to why the movement of goods should be unregulated and unhindered, but the movement of labor should not.
"Movements are often reserved for things not already being pushed hard by the establishment or those with power. Why would free trade need a movement?"
You think that the huge subsidies to ADM and other agricultural places constitute free trade? Byzantine tax laws? Anti-gambling laws? We have a long way to go on free-trade.
The fallacy of your argument is the idea that there is any one single, secure "establishment" position, rather than what we really have: a whole host of competing factions and interests.
Posted by: Bad | Jun 8, 2008 3:07:29 PM
Your point is perfectly well taken Bad. To be more precise, a particular type of free trade has plenty of support from very influential sources. Thus, that set of regulations etc., which is called free trade, is not in need of a movement. Whether it can or should be more free or fair is, I take it, not separable from the discussion. Interestingly, we seem to be at that point where we have extracted all the free trade we can from the remainder of the world without much more reciprocation on the part of the US and EU (see Patrick's mention of the failed Doha rounds.)
So free trade has critics (of the details and definitions) instead of a "movement." But because *free trade* in its current forms still provides many jobs to foreign workers who are thrilled to have them with or without reciprocation or the labor regulations that many believe should be tied to the trade, Rick wonders why progressives aren't raving about it - a basically fair point, even if you have major criticisms of the system (and accepting that Rick likes to stir things up.)
But immigration in any form has no powerful supporters, thus it is in need of a movement.
Posted by: b | Jun 8, 2008 5:49:45 PM
"Polls suggest that members of the Democratic Party are consistently more sympathetic towards immigration than international trade. Why?"
Simple: Democrats believe that more immigrants = more minorities = more Democratic Party voters. Helping Mexicans to stay in Mexico won't help the Democratic Party.
Also, the virtues of "diversity" and "multiculturalism" are best served by unrestricted immigration, legal and otherwise. It's what's needed to end the Red State hegemony, either electorally or (ideally) in the long run by "browning" the population and easing America's burden of racial sin.
Finally, the zero-sum logic of the "social justice", anti-WTO crowd holds that capital exported to Third World countries represents money stolen from the "working poor" here in the US.
Posted by: TSOL | Jun 9, 2008 10:29:06 PM
LHD, what is the difference between your comment and the idea that "immigrants are real because we can see them or make a picture in our heads, but foreign workers are harder to imagine. Oh, and someone might get rich, which would be bad."
Down, down, off your moral high horse.
BTW, after starting out with some stereotypes and broad generalizations on both sides, this has turned into a valuable discussion, and I thank you.
Posted by: Assistant Village Idiot | Jun 9, 2008 10:48:51 PM
A generation ago it was progressive to throw illegals out on their ears because the unions wanted it.
Now the unions don’t have a much power. So it is now progressive to tear the hypothetical families apart because they might add future votes to the progressive cause someday.
Basically, whatever is progressive at the moment is what is good for ‘the movement’ / progressives.
Screw anyone else....
Posted by: Thomass | Jun 10, 2008 12:00:43 AM
Why do "progressives" favor immigration over free trade even though trade benefits people more than immigration? Because the "progressive" agenda is about controlling people, not helping them.
Posted by: Nicodemus | Jun 10, 2008 12:14:21 AM
My sense is that progressives tend to assume that market transactions are exploitative, especially where there is a large power difference.
So I think most progressives support jobs for the poor but hate Wal-Mart, and support expanded housing in ghettoes, but detest the "slum-lords" who make it happen.
Meanwhile I think the ideal progressive economy is sort of a hobbit village, everyone equal and no rich or poor. They key characteristic is that trade is good when people are equal, but is inherently exploitative when they are not.
Posted by: Peter St. Onge | Jun 10, 2008 12:57:59 AM
When one understand the subjective, range-of-the-moment view put forth by most leftist philosophies today, it is easy to see why immigration rather than trade is promoted. Immigration is seen as an immediate benefit. You come and get a job and start getting paid better wages immediately. Trade is seen as taking time to filter down to those who would benefit from it (if it did at all, since non-American countries are seen as worse when it comes to benefiting the worker - else why engage in trade at all). And trade, to them, means loss of "American" jobs, where immigration means gain of jobs being done that Americans supposedly don't want to do themselves.
Posted by: Brian S | Jun 10, 2008 1:22:59 AM
Presumably illegals' friends and families vote "as a block" for Democrates who are presumably pro-immigrant and pro-welfare. Free trades do not produce ready made voters.
Posted by: i | Jun 10, 2008 2:29:00 AM
Why do progressives ignore the benefits of trade in lieu of supporting illegal immigration?
They can't get their heads around free trade. Progressives have no imaginations so the only way they can see for them to do good in this arena is to engage in activities that flout the law such as sanctuary cities and hiring maids and gardeners that are illegal. They get the side benefit of cheap labor for themselves and avoiding the taxes they want everyone else to pay.
They are anti-business. Progressivess want to ruin every business larger than a coffee shop. To successfully trade, their must be evil large companies like ocean carriers (polluters), warehouses (labor exploiters), trucking companies (polluters).
Another reason that progressives favor illegal immigration is that they quietly despise their fellow Americans - the rednecks that love NASCAR and yes blacks in the inner city. These uncontrollable groups cannot be expected to support the utopian vision that progressives have for us. Better to flood the country with cheap exploitable labor that will not be an obstacle to the new order. 'Americans are evil, especially reactionary white ones. We will wipe out the influence they have by diluting them by 'good' brown people.' The misery of increasing joblessness among young blacks, the burden on our healthcare system especially crowding of emergency rooms, the demonstrable flattening of wages for the American working class and the increase of crime committed by illegals are features not bugs to progressives.
Posted by: red | Jun 10, 2008 6:28:19 AM
So why no call from progressives for freer trade to correspond to the call for liberalized immigration? Why do we not see a sanctuary movement to evade customs laws or provide legal defense for importers stopped at ports of entry by U.S. customs officials? Why no mass demonstrations denouncing tariffs?
Because the Left has never been about "helping the poor". If they were, they'd be laissez-faire capitalists -- like liberalism actually was, before the Left co-opted it.
Posted by: Seerak | Jun 10, 2008 3:47:06 PM
It seems as though this discussion has slipped into a presumption that those who support immigrant labor oppose free trade. I think there is nothing exclusive about either of these ideas and that anyone, liberal or conservative, can support both the free movement of people and goods across borders to promote the economic well-being of both the host and home country. When the GATT was envisioned (really when the ITO was envisioned, but I digress), goods trade was the primary mechanism to promote economic liberalization and development. Since then, with the rapid expansion of trade in services, more emphasis has been placed on the movement of people. GATS emerged in 1995 as a starting point, albeit a weak one, in the promotion of services trade, and mode 4 is intended in a very limited context to address some immigration issues. If we are concerned about the disconnect between free trade advocacy and migration, we should focus on reforming GATS to incorporate a fuller picture of the movement of people to emphasize the importance of migration in trade. An artificial separation of the two creates dichotomous perspectives like we are seeing here.
Posted by: Kevin Fandl | Jun 11, 2008 2:47:18 PM
I think LHD (Jun 6, 2008 10:25:44 PM) may have part of the answer. An illegal immigrant about to be deported has a human face that you can see, and it is a sad one. A person living in Nairobi or Karachi, who could have gotten a better job in a export factory, is just an abstraction, easy to ignore or even deny. If you believe that capitalism is inherently bad, it is easy to believe that those jobs can't really make workers better off; the haves will take all the potential gains (e.g., Kevin Fandl's comment Jun 6, 2008 8:01:19 PM).
(If an economist insists that under most conditions, the worker will gain, it is easy to dismiss her as an unrealistic resident of the ivory tower, or a prisoner of her own ideology--or a tool of the ruling class. This is especially easy because many economists assume a superior "I'm the expert; believe me" attitude toward people who disagree with them on trade. The same thing happens with biologists and people who tell them evolution is crock. I think the experts are right in both cases but they don't help their cause by being dismissive of those who disagree.)
Of course, many progressives would say that they don't believe capitalism is inherently bad, just unregulated capitalism. Which perhaps brings up another reason most progressives don't get emotional about removing trade barriers. To many, it just seems like moving in the wrong direction, allowing business people more freedom. And it sends an unacceptable message: often governments are the bad guys and capitalists are the good guys.
Posted by: Roger Sweeny | Jun 15, 2008 8:23:19 AM
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