>
> You have to believe very strongly in new growth theory
> magic--increasing returns of one sort or another somewhere (which, by
> the way, I do)--to reach the conclusion that increased trade is
> Pareto-preferable (unless, of course, reduced trade barriers are
> coupled with increasing social welfare and worker training and
> education expenditures; which is why Clinton's legitimacy to lead the
> Democratic Party has been in doubt since he cut off the left hand of
> his administration; but I degress...)
> Brad DeLong
Brad, there's something that confuses me about your attitude. You seem to be surprised that the same president who is for free trade has no problem working to reduce the social safety net in the US.
Now, I don't think that a single person on this list would be surprised by this - they'd see those two positions as perfectly complementary and to be expected. There was an article on Slate a year of so ago (by Roger Wright?) which discussed this. The author quoted Newt Gingrich gleefully predicting that free trade would indeed cause countries to dismantle their social safety nets, lest capital flee to lower tax/lower service countries (that is, of course, lower service for individuals, not corporations).
You're an economist, Brad. Which is to say that you're a professor in the most right-wing of the social sciences. You must deal with people who are right-wing on a constant basis. So you must be aware of these attitudes (I'm saying this because I've heard somebody say that in 1980 he had a professor wonder how Reagan got elected, because nobody in that professor's social circle was a Republican).
So why are you surprised that, for practical political purposes, support for free trade = suppport for shredding the social safety net?
Sincerely,
Barry DeCicco