Back in the Clinton years, I was a gung-ho free trader. Countries should make what they produce most efficiently, I thought. Sure there might be some temporary dislocation as uncompetitive industries fall by the wayside, but once workers retrain into businesses the U.S.
can compete in, they will also have cheaper products to buy, third-world people will have jobs, and everyone will be better off. I was in good company in thinking like this... it was the basic creed of the Clinton Democrats... and the Republicans for that matter. In the meantime, Perot kept on talking about sucking sounds... it has to be goofy if Perot believes it, right?
Now, however, it's not just the blue collar workers that are losing their jobs. It's computer programmers, radiologists, web designers... yikes! White-collar people! People in my class!
Well, I do have shame. While it's quite possible that my views about trade will become, shall we say, more nuanced in the future, I don't want to turn immediately into a hypocrite. So rather than confront my cognitive dissonance, I've chosen to be confused about trade.
But I'm not going to be able keep this up indefinitely. (It's kind of a big issue now, if you haven't noticed.) So here I am... all limp and dumb. Convince me of what my position should be. I just have two requests: don't say we should have fair trade... what does fair trade mean? And secondly, tell me why I should care more about an American worker having a job than a third-world worker having one.