by From David Ruccio Mainstream economists, such as Harvard’s Gregory Mankiw, celebrate international trade (including outsourcing, which they argue is just another form of international trade) at every opportunity. But right now, voters—especially in the United States and the United Kingdom—aren’t buying what mainstream economists are selling. They are (as I’ve argued here, here, and here) ignoring the so-called experts. That rejection clearly disturbs Mankiw, who just adds fuel to the fire by arguing that the more education people acquire the more they will eventually come around to his view. The implication, of course, is that being against free trade is a sign of ignorance. We all know that Mankiw and his mainstream colleagues have spent an enormous amount of time and effort—in abstract modeling and lending their support to trade agreements, in the classroom, research, and the public arena—extolling the benefits of more international trade. But it’s clear, not only from the Brexit vote and the rhetoric on both sides of the current U.S. presidential campaigns, but also from a survey earlier this year by Bloomberg, that many people remain opposed to free international trade: 65 percent favor restrictions on imported goods to protect American jobs, 44 percent think NAFTA has been bad for the U.S. economy, and 82 percent are willing to pay more for U.S.-made goods.
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from David Ruccio
Mainstream economists, such as Harvard’s Gregory Mankiw, celebrate international trade (including outsourcing, which they argue is just another form of international trade) at every opportunity. But right now, voters—especially in the United States and the United Kingdom—aren’t buying what mainstream economists are selling. They are (as I’ve argued here, here, and here) ignoring the so-called experts.
That rejection clearly disturbs Mankiw, who just adds fuel to the fire by arguing that the more education people acquire the more they will eventually come around to his view. The implication, of course, is that being against free trade is a sign of ignorance.
We all know that Mankiw and his mainstream colleagues have spent an enormous amount of time and effort—in abstract modeling and lending their support to trade agreements, in the classroom, research, and the public arena—extolling the benefits of more international trade.
But it’s clear, not only from the Brexit vote and the rhetoric on both sides of the current U.S. presidential campaigns, but also from a survey earlier this year by Bloomberg, that many people remain opposed to free international trade: 65 percent favor restrictions on imported goods to protect American jobs, 44 percent think NAFTA has been bad for the U.S. economy, and 82 percent are willing to pay more for U.S.-made goods.
Clearly, mainstream economists’ campaign hasn’t worked. So, Mankiw turns to the research of two political scientists, Edward Mansfield and Diana Mutz (pdf and pdf) to find what he wants: anti-trade sentiments are positively correlated with isolationism, nationalism, and ethnocentrism and negatively with level of education. So, in his view,
there is reason for optimism. As society slowly becomes more educated from generation to generation, the general public’s attitudes toward globalization should move toward the experts’.
What I find interesting in Mansfield and Mutz’s research is actually something quite different: people’s attitudes toward international trade (including outsourcing) are not determined by narrow self-interest (such as their job skills or the industry within which they work) but, rather, by the “collective impact that trade policy has on the nation” (what they refer to as a “sociotropic influence,” because of the tendency to rely on collective-level information rather than personal experience).
That result is important because it suggests both mainstream economists and the general public, who may be and often are using very different representations of the economy, have an equally global view of the impact of international trade. Both groups are referring to and forming their judgements based on the nation as a whole. However, while mainstream economists tend to celebrate international trade based on the idea that the nation as a whole benefits (because of the efficient allocation of resources, cheaper imports, and so on), everyday economists may be emphasizing the fact that their nation is internally divided. Thus, in their view, many of their fellow citizens have been negatively affected by international trade and the only real beneficiaries are their employers. So, they continue to be critical of free trade and international trade agreements (such as NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership).
As I see it, more education won’t eliminate that critical view—as long as trade agreements are enacted within a profoundly unequal society and workers have no say in designing the policies that govern international trade.