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>For one, it contradicts the dogma that more trade is strictly beneficial. It is strictly beneficial, in aggregate. But in any situation, there are winners and
by cycrutchfield 7y ago
>For one, it contradicts the dogma that more trade is strictly beneficial.
It is strictly beneficial, in aggregate. But in any situation, there are winners and there are losers. There are no decisions you can make where everybody wins. If you live in a first world country and your skill set is worse than somebody in the developing world, you’re going to have a bad time.
- deogeo 7y ago> But in any situation, there are winners and there are losers. The usually trotted-out theory of comparative advantage claims there are only winners.
- cycrutchfield 7y agoI don’t think you fully understand comparative advantage then.
- ACow_Adonis 7y agoagain, only in the aggregate/ entity of measurement level. I would argue anyone who says otherwise is either being disingenuous or doesn't actually understand economics. That is not to say that is not trotted out frequently. Also, to be fair, during my economics education they had this whole focus on modeling policies and finding optimizations where no one is worse off. Of course, in the real world, that practically never happens... and there is an argument that the focus on efficient/competitive markets/ equilibria/rational agents is also a bit "wouldn't it be nice if the world was actually like this...", whereas in the real world only the most trivial goods/markets can vaguely be described as such...
- FooHentai 7y ago>If you live in a first world country and your skill set is worse than somebody in the developing world, you’re going to have a bad time. Even if your skill set is greater, your cost of living is higher. So you'd have to be more than marginally better. Also, the logical conclusion of where this seems to be headed is that if you're a low-skill person living in a first-world county, voting for protectionist, isolationist policies/politicians is a rational choice.
- cycrutchfield 7y agoSure, as we saw quite vividly in 2016. This is also known as Crab Mentality.
- deogeo 7y agoIt's really not - crab mentality refers to pulling others down for no reason other than envy. But in this case, the reason is the lower classes don't want to be pushed even lower. Are they supposed to selflessly sacrifice themselves so that the rich can get even richer?
- cycrutchfield 7y agoThey want the economy to suffer to preserve their legacy careers doing pointless things like mining coal or forging steel, things that somebody in a developing nation can do just as well for 1/10 the cost. Why are blue collar jobs so sacrosanct? When the careers of secretaries and travel agents essentially vanished, there was no weeping and moaning, no irrational protectionism, no economic suicide. People moved on to do something more productive with their time, and so should the coal miners. So, yes, they are crabs at the bottom of the pot seeing other crabs moving up, and they cannot abide by that.
- deogeo 7y agoAh yes, mustn't let "the economy" suffer - who cares about the actual workers within that economy.
- cycrutchfield 7y agoI mean, you’ve shown that you don’t even understand the concept of comparative advantage at the individual vs. aggregate level. How am I supposed to explain to you that protectionist policies benefit a small minority of workers at the expense of almost everybody else? Instead, I’ll just suggest that you find a good Freshman-level Economics textbook and read carefully. You may find it illuminating to understand the concepts behind complex policy decisions.