I’m going to stick up for the argument for free trade, since no one else will.

Free trade is not the free movement of capital. Free trade is not multinational corporations. Free trade is just trade between countries without tariffs or quotas.

This is the argument for free trade. Let’s say there is no trade between two countries. Each country makes what it needs. Now suppose the countries sign a free trade agreement. If they have nothing to trade, then nothing changes. But each country has something the other wants, then when they trade, both countries are better off. So voila, everyone’s happy!

Now I don’t think that the empirical evidence particularly indicates that whether trade is free is that important, but the existence of trade is paramount. If you are a poor country, the most reliable way to stop being a poor country is through trade. That’s how Japan did it. That’s how South Korea did it. That’s how China and India are doing it right now.

If there is free trade, they don’t want free movement of labor, because they want to keep the concentration of labor high in the countries they are outsourcing to, in order to keep wages down there.

On the other hand, if there are tariffs that make importing goods more expensive, then free movement of labor drives down the cost of labor in the domestic labor pool.

From labor’s perspective, you want either both free trade and free labor movement, or neither.

Of course, it is pretty clear who is deciding both tariff and immigration policy these days…

and TLB, you oughta be president. you remind me of the substance and depth that our man W flaunts. different in your thinking, but the same big heart and mind.

The argument in favor then continues with economists pointing out that the winners in the deal could compensate the losers for their losses and still have money left over, so that everyone would truly be better off.

Then, after the free trade agreement is in place, you’ll be surprised and shocked to hear, the winners laugh heartily at the idea that they might consider compensating the losers in reality rather than just theory. And the economists who based their arguments in favor of free trade on the ostensible expectations of compensation are nowhere to be found. It’s like the mathematician in the burning hotel, who sees the fire hose and extinguisher, mutters, “a solution exists,” and goes back to sleep.

Capital is better at being capital than people are–it’s faster, it doesn’t need food or water, it doesn’t get depressed when people die, it doesn’t need to look out the window or take a walk now and again and it lives forever. When we talk about unrestricted flows of capital and people, we’re talking as if people should try to be more like money.

It’s rhetorically exciting to talk about “unrestricted flows” and exciting international stuff and movement and change–a lot more fun than talking about policy details and regulation and planning. But really, everything gets regulated somehow–it gets regulated by physical limitations in the last instance, or by the good old invisible hand, or by backroom dealing. Better to have the regulation up front where you can see it and change it.

In fact, we talk carelessly about “free trade”–it’s really more like the “free market”, where it’s not really “free” but supported by a complex infrastructure biased toward the wealthy. We talk about “free” trade like it’s some kind of pre-modern thing, like you just load up your microchips on donkey-back and head over the mountains to the next village, but “free” trade is tied up in a network of transit, environmental, safety and economic regulations. It’s not the absence of regulation.

I’m not against more-or-less open borders–it’s really only fair to individuals to let them move if they want to when corporations can do just that. But open borders will not end the bias of law and economic policy toward the wealthy and powerful.

1. The present system where we have free movement of goods, services and capital, but NOT labour, serves to further entrench inequalities, as profits are no longer spent where they are generated.
2. The present system also provides a powerful economic incentive to maximise inequality, as the level of inequality between the people who produce your goods and the people who buy them has a strong influence on your marginal profit.
3. By allowing free movement of labour, the long-term trend should be to reduce inequalites, as argued in the post.
4. The free movement of labour would also provide a strong incentive to minimise inequality, as a way of reducing the incentive for everyone in the world to move to (eg) Monaco.

“Free trade” depends on personal immobility–that’s what makes it cheaper. That’s why conservatives and the wealthy like it; it makes them wealthier. Restrictions on immigration are exactly what define, what create “free trade”.

It’s a mistake, I think, to debate this as if most politicians and CEOs and hereditary rich people are sitting around thinking “Wow, neoliberalism is persuasive…maybe we ought to think more about the very nature of capital and not keep it penned up at home.” They’re looking for practical strategies which will enrich them in the long term, not coming up with ideologies. Free trade “ideology” is what organizes these practices in people’s minds and in public debate.

But people aren’t the same as capital. Capital moves easily, capital translates well. Moving yourself and your family and your stuff to a new place is difficult and exhausting, even when the job at the other end is a good one. (And I’ve moved to another country for a good job.) Moving has material costs attached, plus you leave your community and often your native language. I couldn’t bear the thought of moving to, say, Belize, just in order to work as a secretary for the same money that I make now. I’d do it if I needed to do so to survive, but it would be horrible.

And it’s those same forced economic migrations that people make every day–across the desert, in a cargo hold, in the back of a van, huddled in a cheap plane seat. Those aren’t fun. They aren’t freedom. And they certainly aren’t an ideal model for a “borderless” future.

I would support open borders because open borders would probably break the system in the end, but I don’t think that open borders are the best solution to free trade. Much more open borders coupled with a really strong international commitment to labor and environmental standards, an end to stupid military adventurism…things like that would make it so that fewer people needed to move, and then it would be no problem to let the ones who did move wherever they liked.

We really need to be wary of one-stop solutions to matters of free trade, in my opinion.

The true “science” of economics is using numbers to pretend the flow of money is largely natural autonomous force, that the behavior of actual humans making conscious decisions according to their own idiosyncratic ideas of what is moral are merely side effects of “the economy.” Thus does the knowing actions to treat large groups of people like shit - be it for utopian or crass motives - are excused as just the human manifestation of the elemental force of money only a fool would ignore.

Thus whoever is getting screwed by the current theory just needs to be patience and wait out the discomfort of the period of adjustment. Sure it may wreck much of their lives or several generations, but the theory will benefit all if given time.

Economists will sneer at those suffering for being so foolish or selfish to plan their lives on a desire for financial stability, for not saving up for the possibility of an massive income drop for an indefinite period of time.

For both right and left, it doesn’t matter people are desperate to come north due to the massive income gap at home, held in place not because the money isn’t there, but because the wealthy can ruthlessly crush any attempt at redress. No this is just the state of things and it’s the fault of those on the receiving end for wanting exceptions to the circumstances created by those at the top.

This economic shell game is not just played on the right. Lefty economists (not the radical ones, but the Thomas Friedman ones) present utopian theories proclaim that if only those at risk stop selfishly worrying about themselves the elemental force of money will naturally create a more just system for all, which the wealthy will allow because it is inevitable.

Nor is there a need for theorists to address the concerns of the opposition to any economic model, or seek a safe and gradual transition between economic states. There’s no need, for example, to demand Mexico and America have the same minimum wage. That is too hard - just open the borders or close them completely and assume things can sort themselves out with out dealing with the issues on either side.