Replies

Re:That free trade is advantageous to both sides is the rarest of political propositions – provable, indeed mathematically. David Ricardo did so in 1817.

I am extremely suspicious of mathematical "proofs" that involve human-related variables. And that's because such proofs always assume that humans will make optimal decisions. But humans are not robots.

As an example, sometimes a leader will choose a less than optimal economic outcome in return for, say, a political advantage. And since the proof did not take politics into account, the proof falls apart.

Krauthammer is a shill for the citizen of the world who run global finance and corporations.

Richardo mathematatically 'proved' no such thing as Krauthammer claims.

Krauthammer neglects to mention that Ricardo himself admits that 'comparative advantage' only works for things that are fixed geographically, such as climate, mineral deposits, etc' He assumes that capital and labor will not cross borders i.e. he assumes that capital will not pursue cheap labor in another country.

Per Ricardo:
"..........
The difference in this respect, between a single country and many, is easily accounted for, by considering the difficulty with which capital moves from one country to another, to seek a more profitable employment, and the activity with which it invariably passes from one province to another in the same country.
..................
It would undoubtedly be advantageous to the capitalists of England, and to the consumers in both countries, that under such circumstances, the wine and the cloth should both be made in Portugal, and therefore that the capital and labour of England employed in making cloth, should be removed to Portugal for that purpose
...............
Experience, however, shews, that the fancied or real insecurity of capital, when not under the immediate control of its owner, together with the natural disinclination which every man has to quit the country of his birth and connexions, and intrust himself with all his habits fixed, to a strange government and new laws, check the emigration of capital. These feelings, which I should be sorry to see weakened, induce most men of property to be satisfied with a low rate of profits in their own country, rather than seek a more advantageous employment for their wealth in foreign nations.”

Additionally Ricardo's work grew out of Smith's Wealth of Nation' which is based upon an economy consisting of samall owner run businesses.