One Equal Temper - No Trade is Free

[Kamaji]

One Equal Temper

Robert Lighthizer’s new book, No Trade Is Free, should be the foundational text for a new generation of policymakers.

Jude Russo
Jul 6, 2023

When I was first married, I briefly tried to earn an honest living. I worked for a startup attempting to take advantage of various long-term changes in the irreparably broken American healthcare industry. It paid poorly and had no benefits, and the rigors of the early COVID economy had resulted in exciting changes to the payroll process—namely, whether we’d get paid or not. Shortly before the birth of my eldest daughter, like a dog to its vomit, I returned to the conservative press.

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Near the end of my tenure, we discovered through the same service a taciturn Macedonian named Ali. Ali was an actual medical doctor, and could proofread clinical notes for accuracy as he entered them into records systems; he cost $6.50 per hour. Our billing was handled by an Indian firm; I forget exactly how much we paid them, but it was far less than an equivalent American full-time position.

There are a handful of important and interrelated points to take from this little self-indulgent dip into my personal history. These “knowledge work” jobs are all completely digital and ultimately service-based, the sorts of positions meant to replace American manufacturing and goods-based work at the end of history. They are also, by American standards, often low-paying and unpleasant—not the promise held out in the ’90s. Finally, thanks to the internet, they turn out to be just as easily outsourced as manufacturing jobs, if not more so—even relatively high-skill work like proofing notes and handling billing.

This anecdote should be a cause for alarm and dread. (If you think it is exceptional, I recommend you go to fiverr.com and look for other high-skill service professionals like graphic designers or web developers.) Robert Lighthizer’s new book, No Trade Is Free: Changing Course, Taking On China, and Helping America’s Workers, articulates that alarm and proposes remedies.

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There are two types of argument when it comes to economic policy. As you’d expect, the first is purely economic: Thus and such action will bring more prosperity. The second is—you guessed it—political: The state and the nation are strengthened by thus and such action. The former sort of argument is subject to all sorts of quibbling and special pleading; the latter tends to be clear-cut, a matter illuminated by the sober light of day. Simply put, if the United States is ever involved in a war with a near-peer power, it must have an industrial base that is under its control. (For those who think the days of materiel-heavy infantry wars are over, or that trading partners never go to war, I say, Ha! and point to the Russia–Ukraine articles in the New York Times.) Lighthizer argues persuasively that an aggressive trade policy is economical; he is unanswerable when he says that it is vital to the interest of national sovereignty.

Without laws set and enforced states, markets devolve into piracy and unruly conflict, hardly an arena for fair trade. Since conditions for markets are created and maintained by states, market purity must be subordinated to the interests of the state—a simple premise. The Trump presidency made some first steps toward reining in our trade policy to serve the national interest; the question is whether a weakened America will stay the difficult course to a healthier clime.

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Source:  https://www.theamericanconservative.com/one-equal-temper/