Give me free trade, or give me death

Fri, 01/08/2010 - 1:17pm | posted by Jason Pye

Those of you that have been reading my posts here at UL for awhile know that I am a proponent of free trade. It one of our most basic economic liberties, the right to freely exchange the fruits of their labor without interference from any authority.

One of the more disappointing aspects of recent political discourse is the rhetoric that has so ignorantly tossed out by populists like Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee. Calls for
“fair trade” or new tariffs are, simply put, poor economic policy.

As Daniel Griswald explains, free trade is responsible for lifiting many of the world’s poor out of bleak conditions and given them opportunity:

For Americans worried about their jobs, it is a big lie that we have been surrendering middle-class manufacturing jobs for low-paying service jobs. In fact, since 1991, two-thirds of the net new jobs created in the U.S. economy have been in sectors such as health care, education and business and professional services where the average pay is higher than in manufacturing.

Knock on doors in a typical middle-class neighborhood in southern Florida and you will meet teachers, managers, engineers, computer specialists, truck drivers, accountants, insurance and real-estate agents, registered nurses and other health-care professionals and self-employed business owners. These are the occupations that now form the backbone of the American middle class.

Beyond American shores, the past three decades of expanding trade and globalization have witnessed dramatic global progress. Between 1981 and 2005, the share of the world’s population living on the equivalent of $1.25 a day dropped by half, from 52 to 25 percent, according to the World Bank. During this same period, real gains have been made in life expectancy, infant survival, nutrition and literacy. The most dramatic gains against poverty have occurred in those countries, such as China and Chile, that have most aggressively opened themselves to the global economy.

With every liberty is excess, no one denies that, but free trade provides us all with opportunity and advantage. It’s nothing to scoff at, unless you’ve completely sold out to workers unions (looking at you, Mr. President).