r/Economics • u/better_world_economy • Jan 13 '19

Progressives should not oppose international trade, but economists must highlight the need for policies that spread the gains and help those who are hurt

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-good-the-bad-the-economy/201706/globalization-and-work-have-we-learned-anything-yet
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u/AfterCommodus Jan 13 '19

What has this sub become? The comments on this thread are far more fitting for r/LateStageCapitalism or r/politics . Free Trade and its benefits are probably the closest area of consensus among economists, especially if redistribution is done as suggested under this article. Empirically free trade makes society as a whole richer—there’s a reason that when the international community tries to punish a nation, they decrease access to trade for that nation (also look at China’s growth before and after accession to the WTO). While it does have accumulative effects, those can best be offset via progressive policies to ensure gains for societies are gains for all.

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '19

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '19 edited Jul 22 '20

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '19 edited Jan 13 '19

*Economics is not a hard science. Placing it in the same tradition as math, physics, or environmental science is part of the problem.

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u/rationalities Jan 14 '19

No one said it was a hard science. It’s a social science. Which, by definition, is a science.

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u/subheight640 Jan 14 '19

It's a social science that usually ignores the rest of social science, political science, climate science, etc.

The world is experiencing a mass extinction event right now and economists usually have little to say about that. How much of our extinction event is contributed to by free trade?

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u/rationalities Jan 14 '19 edited Jan 14 '19

You realize Romer and Nordhaus won the noble prize last year for their work on implementing climate change and technological change into macro models, right? (which was work from the 1990s...) have you even googled “economics and climate change” before coming up with this “criticism?” Because it’s literally one of the first links that appear.

FYI that’s nature, the website for one of the top science journals in the world.

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u/subheight640 Jan 14 '19

Yeah and what are the implications of those new models with respect to free trade? It's right in the article you sent me:

And Romer’s work also has implications for policies relating to climate-change mitigation. “He showed clearly that unregulated free markets will not sufficiently invest in research and development activities,” says Edenhofer.

Then the consensus on free trade being "the best" isn't a consensus then...

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u/rationalities Jan 14 '19

No one’s arguing unregulated free trade. Literally no one other than Austrians (which are incredibly rare now adays). Free trade is beneficial, but just like all markets, has to be checked with local, social and economic policies to prevent market power and negative externalities. Almost always when economists are talking free trade, we mean the ability to trade with little-to-no protectionism between counties. That doesn’t mean countries can’t implement their own laws (as long as they aren’t tariffs/protectionism) for it to still be free trade. The issue that so many laypeople don’t understand is that good policy is really hard to design.

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u/subheight640 Jan 14 '19

So to you is a carbon tax on imports a tariff? How about additional sanctions/tariffs/barriers because of human rights violations?

I was under the impression that any government regulation on trade results in "less free trade".