The Science Of Free Trade

DEMOCRATS HAD a grand time in 2004 congratulating themselves as being the party of science (i.e., pro embryonic stem cell research) while the Republicans were the party of superstition that would shut of hope for Alzheimers sufferers.

Of course when it comes to economics, the shoe is on the other foot, as Thomas Sowell reminds us. Ever since the early economists came up with the law of comparative advantage, the advocates of economic privilege and clientage (which today means Democrats) have struggled against it. The law of comparative advantage says that it is always mutually beneficial for two or more people to engage in economic interchange untrammeled by monopoly and trade barriers, in short, that free trade works. But those that have extracted monopoly privileges out of the government stand to lose from a removal of trade barriers and government economic regulation. They agitate against the removal of their privileges.

When Democrats rail against “outsourcing” they are railing against the law of comparative advantage. They are also railing against economic growth, lifting the poor out of poverty, and they are shilling for special interests like the sugar lobby. So whose science are you on, Democrats?

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.

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“When we began first to preach these things, the people appeared as awakened from the sleep of ages—they seemed to see for the first time that they were responsible beings...”
Finke, Stark, The Churching of America, 1776-1990

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In 1911... at least nine million of the 12 million covered by national insurance were already members of voluntary sick pay schemes. A similar proportion were also eligible for medical care.
Green, Reinventing Civil Society

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E. G. West, Education and the State

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Law being too tenuous to rely upon in [Ulster and the Scottish borderlands], people developed patterns of settling differences by personal fighting and family feuds.
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Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism

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