So an American worker who is put out of work by manufacturing moving to China is every bit as able to move to China and work in one of the factories, as is the capital able to move?
And what do you propose to do about the disintegration of the middle and working classes? The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
My conclusion of you being in favor of doing trade deal after trade deal, is that you are either insane or you favor the result: disintegration of the middle class.
And do any of your “theories” of comparative advantage take into account what will happen when Americans go to a different extreme. When they either can’t elect a Sanders or a Trump, or they do and nothing changes, then they burn down the damn country?
What does comparative advantage say about a French Revolution style insurrection that burns the country down and destroys half the wealth? You may be blind to the danger, but I’m not.
And what is your solution for lower wages? Those lower wages that buy cheap shit from China don’t buy more college education, more healthcare or more easily pay for houses or apartment rent.
Economists are just whores and propagandists for the modern elites, just like the religious leaders were whores for the ancient and feudal elites.
Moral arguments “I should be able to trade with who I want to” pale in comparison to the freedom that will be lost when the peasants start demanding free shit that we all know won’t be free.
Not only that, but what happens when China stops with the pretending of being our “friend”, and decides to go to war. What then?
Should we have had “Free Trade” with the Japs in the 1930s when they were waltzing into Manchuria and Nanking?
You are singularly focused on comparative advantage when you should be concerned with freedom. My conclusion is that you want government to make things right again so you must believe that government is reliable, capable and responsible. Sorry, I'm conservative and know better. You think the middle class is taking it on the chin now? Just wait until you and your economic illiterate buddies start picking winners and losers rather than hundreds of millions of people making billions of transaction in their best interest. When the people who believe they know what's best for everyone else (the elites) start deciding what you can buy and whom you can buy from, the middle class is really going to eat dirt.
We've already been through this before. The Boston Tea Party happened, and facilitated the American revolution, because our forefathers were tired of being taxed on the things they needed and hated being told who they had to buy from. The fact that these guys called themselves the Sons of Liberty should be a wake up call to everyone looking to government to make things better. Government needs to get the hell out of the way.
Blaming the welfare state on the freedom to trade requires an uncommon misunderstanding of basic economic theory and current events.