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A rabbi and a priest are in a field of strawberries dotted with tall apple trees. In order to meet their Maker, they must thoroughly harvest their hectare. The priest is 7 feet tall; the rabbi is a pisher (5 feet tall, for those of you not fluent in Yiddish). Who should do what? Duh. The tall guy picks the apples; the short guy harvests the strawberries. Easy call. That’s comparative advantage – the rabbi is vertically-challenged so he has a comparative advantage picking things low whereas the priest is high so he may pick unforbidden fruit. The notion follows that countries have similar advantages: Kiwi grows easily in New Zealand, and not so easily in Saudi Arabia. Now Saudi gardeners could probably build shade, import soil, and mist-ify water to try and replicate the natural conditions of New Zealand but… why? Why not just let the Kiwis grow their kiwis and ship ‘em (on boats powered by Saudi oil…).

How about this? One country has a lot of tall people and some short people. Another country has a bunch of short people. The country with short people pick strawberries, and put the strawberry industry in the taller country out of work. The taller country starts picking apples. Eventually the short people in the taller country end up becoming part of a welfare state that is a drain on the taller country or perhaps the taller country just lets them starve to death. Then the shorter country figures out how to make really cheap ladders, and so now they can easily pick apples, and now everyone in the taller country starves to death. Ricardo's "comparative advantage" was written in an era when capital couldn't flee. It is about as relevant now as Newtonian physics is when studying quarks.

Ricardo's "comparative advantage" was written in an era when capital couldn't flee.

Nonsense. Capital has flowed to where it is treated best since civilization began tracking the flow of capital. For the entire 18th century, Britain ran a current account deficit and was a net importer of capital. But in the 19th century, the UK ran a current account surplus and was a net exporter of capital. When did Ricardo develop his theory on comparative advantage?