Market Correction

27 February 2008

The Editor, New York Times
229 West 43rd St.
New York, NY 10036

To the Editor:

David Leonhardt reports that famed economist Alan Blinder - now giving aid and comfort to protectionists - says that "Trade has winners and losers ... and there have been a lot of losers in Ohio" ("The Politics of Trade in Ohio," February 27). Prof. Blinder should know better. Trade is simply one manifestation of consumer sovereignty. Just as there are, by Prof. Blinder's calculus, winners and losers from consumers being free to shift their expenditures from goods made in America to goods made abroad, there are winners and losers from consumers being free to shift their expenditures from goods made in Tennessee to goods made in California - and from consumers being free to shift their expenditures from donuts, beef, cigarettes, whiskey, and train travel to bagels, fish, yoga lessons, wine, and air travel.

Prof. Blinder's suggestion that international trade is uniquely responsible for eliminating particular jobs is terribly mistaken.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University

26 February 2008

The Editor, New York Times
229 West 43rd St.
New York, NY 10036

To the Editor:

Bettijane Sills declares that "If Mrs. Clinton does all she can to win the nomination, then more power to her" (Letters, February 26). Such praise of the hypocrisy, deceit, dissembling, and demagoguery so typical of political campaigns hits a truer target than Ms. Sills intends. It IS, for each candidate, all about getting "more power."

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University

25 February 2008

Editor, Newsweek

Dear Editor:

Re "Obama targets NAFTA but says supports free trade" (February 25): You can bank on the fact that any politician, such as Sen. Obama, who supports free trade as long as it is "fair trade" opposes both freedom and fairness in trading. Fact is, all trade that is free is presumptively fair. With free trade, no third-party prevents any consumer from striking deals that that consumer finds most attractive. Sellers' nationalities enter into consideration here no more than do sellers' musical tastes, hair color, shoe sizes, or other irrelevancies.

In contrast, restrictions on international trade not only reduce consumers' freedom, they also enable domestic producers to charge prices higher than they could otherwise charge. And that's truly unfair, for such restrictions unjustly rob consumers of their most attractive exchange opportunities in order to give unearned benefits to domestic producers.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University

24 February 2008

Editor, Boston Globe

Dear Editor:

In "Words still have the power to inspire" (February 24) Leonard Pitts Jr. writes approvingly that the President's authority comes chiefly "from his ability to rally the people, to inspire them in some great challenge or crusade."

Reading these words clarified for me an elemental reason for my scorn of conservatives and modern "liberals." Being libertarian, I find no romance in collective action. The yearning to be part of a great collective "challenge or crusade" - be it conservative or "liberal" - reflects humans' tribal instincts. These instincts served a sound purpose during our hunter-gatherer past, but are today at odds with the individualism that makes us free and prosperous. Even worse, these atavistic instincts are exploited by silver-tongued and arrogant office-seekers such Barack Obama to gain measures of power that no man or woman should ever be trusted with.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University

23 February 2008

The Editor, New York Times
229 West 43rd St.
New York, NY 10036

To the Editor:

So America's infrastructure has suffered what you describe as "decades of underfunding and inattention" ("Before Another Bridge Falls," 23 February 2008). This fact should shake the foundations of your faith in big government. Adequately supplying public goods such as roads and bridges ranks among government's least objectionable and most widely agreed upon duties. And yet government fails even at this core task.

Perhaps one reason for this failure is that government has loaded itself with too many other tasks that drain its attention and resources away from attending well to its chief duties. Or perhaps government, even at its finest, is incurably clumsy and untrustworthy. Whatever the reason for government's failure to supply sound infrastructure, don't you see the danger in entrusting this same agency with the power to govern our diets, to "redistribute" our incomes, to regulate our industries, and, indeed, to intervene in nearly all of the ways that you famously demand?

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University

22 February 2008

Editor, Washington Post
1150 15th St., NW
Washington, DC 20071

Dear Editor:

Eugene Robinson admires Barack Obama's "simple but powerful message — change, hope, empowerment" ("If Obama Went 0-for-10 . . .," February 22).

I'm sorry, but where's the beef? "Change, hope, empowerment" is merely platitudinous pablum. Its substance equals that of "It's morning in America again" - and falls far short of the likes of "Finger-lickin' good" and "Melts in your mouth, not in your hand."

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University

21 February 2008

Editor, Washington Post
1150 15th St., NW
Washington, DC 20071

Dear Editor:

Being a "progressive" thinker, Harold Meyerson routinely commits ages-old errors. For example, he argues that the only source of widespread prosperity is manufacturing ("The Mall of America," February 21). In the mid-18th century, the French Physiocrats - believing that new-fangled manufacturing generated no net wealth - argued that the only source of widespread prosperity is agriculture.

Like the Physiocrats, Mr. Meyerson has an antediluvian fetish for the physical. He supposes that services, such retailing and finance, are unproductive. This supposition, however, is clearly mistaken. If it were true, then society would not benefit from the likes of health-care workers and researchers, accountants, insurers, airline pilots, firemen, software designers, and even newspaper pundits. Or does Mr. Meyerson really believe that, say, the bankers who assembled the financing to create the firm that built his computer, or who helped put his physician through medical school, are unproductive? Does he really think that these bankers (and insurers, and researchers...) are monuments to an economy in decline?

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University

20 February 2008

Editor, The Washington Times

Dear Editor:

Like economic alchemists, Senators Clinton and Obama peddle plans to spend billions of taxpayer dollars on various government projects that will create millions of jobs ("Obama's economic plan," February 20).

Creating jobs - creating demand for workers - is no challenge. Vandals and arsonists do so routinely. What IS a challenge is to create opportunities for workers to earn good incomes while producing real value for others, where value is confidently measured by the amounts that buyers voluntarily pay for what is produced. As far as I know, Sens. Clinton and Obama (and, for that matter, McCain) have never created a business whose success relied upon producing outputs efficiently and then selling these outputs at prices attractive to consumers.

So why suppose that any of their "plans" to create innovative industries and jobs are anything other than the cheap fantasies of self-important people accustomed to spending other people's money?

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University

19 February 2008

Editor, The Washington Times

Dear Editor:

Reflecting on Rwanda's gruesome 1994 genocide, President Bush correctly noted that "evil does exists" ("Bush honors Rwandan dead," February 19). But Rwanda's post-genocide experience teaches a lesson that remains too-little appreciated: commerce crowds out evil.

My wife, Karol Boudreaux, has done extensive research in Rwanda. She finds compelling evidence that Rwanda's deregulation of its coffee market has played a major role in calming tribal hostilities in that country.* With commercial opportunities in the very large coffee industry now more widely available than before, Hutus and Tutsis, who just a few years ago sought to slaughter each other, now mutually prosper by working side by side to grow and process coffee for the global market.

Commerce, not arms, brought peace and the seeds of prosperity to Rwanda.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University

* http://www.enterpriseafrica.org/Publications/pubID.4402/pub_detail.asp

18 February 2008

Editor, Washington Post Book World
1150 15th St., NW
Washington, DC 20071

Dear Editor:

Paul Blustein makes several good points in his review of Ha-Joon Chang's book, "Bad Samaritans," that allegedly deflates the case for free trade ("The Case Against Globalization," February 17). But Mr. Blustein (apparently like Mr. Chang) misses the more fundamental point that no serious proponent of free trade claims that freedom to trade across political borders is either necessary or sufficient for economic growth. Nineteenth-century America was indeed encumbered by some high tariffs. It was, however, also an immense transcontinental free-trade zone with secure property rights, low taxes, open immigration, and little government regulation. A free-market economy goes a long way by itself to create prosperity, even if that freedom stops at national borders; absence of a market economy condemns its denizens to poverty even if such an economy has low tariffs.

Even more fundamentally, the data show an overwhelmingly positive relationship across countries between per-capita incomes and freedom to trade internationally. It would be a shame for his readers to interpret Mr. Chang's anecdotes as he does: as making a case against free trade.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University

17 February 2008

Editor, Washington Post
1150 15th St., NW
Washington, DC 20071

Dear Editor:

I'm forever flabbergasted at the preposterously low standards to which politicians are held. Case in point: in today's lead editorial you correctly note that Senators Clinton and Obama each now is trumpeting more and more wrongheaded populist themes - including suspicion of trade - only to increase her or his chances of securing the nomination. So by your own assessment (which I share) the next President of the United States might well be someone who endorses policies that he or she knows to be unwise, AND who lies in order to score with the electorate.

If a man tonight falsely assures a woman of his undying love only to score with her, we rightly regard him as a sleazeball. But when politicians do essentially the same thing, save on a much larger scale, we call them "public servants" and treat them as our saviors. Very strange.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University