by | BLOG, BUSINESS, ECONOMY
Don Boudreaux is one of the authors of Cafe Hayek, a fantastic, long-running newsletter on economics. If you aren’t reading it, you should. Below is his short and marvelous analogy, “Trade is a Technology.” I have reproduced it below.
“You ask: “What is the shortest best way to prove the case for trade freedom?”
I’m afraid that no such proof is possible. Ultimately the decision to support or oppose free trade rests on a value judgment. That free trade is the best, or even an acceptable, policy cannot be established in the same way that we can establish the truth of the Pythagorean theorem. There are, however, arguments to be made that reveal surprising, attractive powers of free trade – arguments that, when presented amicably, are effective in opening people’s eyes to important and beautiful aspects of trade. I encourage you to read carefully Frédéric Bastiat’s Economic Sophisms; in it you’ll find unmatched brilliance at exposing fallacies that infect the case for protectionism. Read also Russell Roberts’s The Choice, Doug Irwin’s Free Trade Under Fire, Dan Griswold’s Mad About Trade, and Pierre Lemieux’s What’s Wrong With Protectionism?
But let me offer one argument for trade that satisfies at least your criterion for ‘short.’ It’s this: trade is a technology that enables human beings to transform almost anything into almost anything else. You produce whatever you choose to produce and then exchange that output for whatever it is you wish to acquire. You can today produce outputs different from those that you produced yesterday and still acquire today the same things that you acquired yesterday. Or you can produce today the same things that you produced yesterday, yet transform those outputs today into things different from those that you acquired yesterday.
Trade truly is a marvelous technology! If trade were an actual, physical machine it would be hailed as one of the greatest inventions of all time. And so when government restricts your ability to transform what you produce into outputs produced by foreigners, government artificially restricts the operation of this technology. Protectionism is akin to sabotaging a machine. (In fact, at work here are real machines: cargo ships, which are effectively sabotaged by protectionism.) We recognize that such sabotage is destructive when done to the likes of factories, tractors, trucks, and computers. We should recognize also that it’s destructive when done to trade.”
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
by | BLOG, EDUCATION, FREEDOM, Israel
“Israel bears full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life…I will not condemn Palestinian resistance.” These are the words of former NYU Law Student Bar Association President Ryna Workman, issued via the association’s email list to as many as 2,000 students. The loss of life Workman so callously attributes to Israel was caused by Hamas terrorists who killed approximately 1,300 people and took hundreds more captive; these are conservative estimates. The attack occurred on Simchat Torah (October 7th), a Jewish holiday during the festival known as Sukkot, and marked the deadliest attack on Israel since 1973.
Let me be clear: Workman is a symptom of a larger disease. Workman is one person; the more damning and horrifying aspect of NYU is that she felt comfortable enough to blast it publicly, openly endorsing heinous acts. What was the response of the student body? 41% of them either approved of or applauded her position and vitriol. Sickening.
Workman believes that Hamas are freedom fighters who should be commended and encouraged in their senseless acts of brutality. Fathi Hamad, a senior member of Gaza’s Islamist rulers Hamas, said “…Seven million Palestinians outside, enough warming up, you have Jews with you in every place. You should attack every Jew possible in all the world and kill them.” Hamas seeks the utter destruction and eradication of the Jewish people. That is crystal clear, and these are the people that Ryan Workman, who was placed in a position of authority and prestige by her peers, idolizes.
Ryna Workman is utterly reprehensible, but perhaps the most damning is the NYU student body. Thirty-six percent voted that Workman should remain in office despite her outrageous claims. The evening of Workman’s anti-Semitic email blast, a vote of no confidence was initiated by a student-led petition. Per student affairs, each student received a voting link tied to their netID. A voting link was sent to 2,070 law students, and 1,176 votes were recorded. Seven hundred and seven students (60%) voted that the SBA President, Ryna Workman, should not remain in office. Four hundred and twenty-eight students (36%) voted that she should remain in office, and 41 (3%) abstained. It is utterly terrifying that 40% of law students attending what was once a prestigious bastion of higher education could find nothing wrong with some blatant cruelty and openly side with kidnappers, rapists, and murderers. Four hundred and twenty-eight “highly educated” men and women openly endorsed it, and 41 could care less.
Workman went on to double down on her previous statements by appearing before ABC News and refusing to condemn the murder and kidnapping of civilians, and the use of sexual violence and the separation and torture of children. Workman has been removed from her office and had a job offer from Winston & Strawn revoked over the message, but that is not enough. Everyone that endorsed her via their votes should also face consequences. These men and women are not fit to serve in a court of law. Evil is alive and flourishing within the American higher education and judicial systems.
