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Comment by michaelhoney | Hacker News Reader

the reductive, absurd version of something is reductive and absurd, but that doesn't mean that the nuanced, appropriate version is wrong

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But it provides a tool to see how and why the “nuanced, appropriate version” is actually wrong.

When one limits the choices for purchases or sales, one reduces efficiency, whether it’s limiting to products made at your home, in your city, in your state, or even in your country. It’s failed for so many centuries across hundreds of countries and attempts that it’s not even a question except among politicians stoking fear to gain votes.

The question isn't whether maximum global free trade maximizes efficiency. The question is whether maximizing global economic efficiency creates optimal outcomes for a nation, for groups within a nation, or for individuals in the nation. It is clearly a mixed bag, so there is pushback.

Ask these questions. Besides maximizing monetary efficiency:

Does free trade maximize a nation's resiliency?

Does free trade maximize a nation's employment?

Does free trade maximize a nation's security?

Does free trade promote equitable distribution of a nation's wealth?

Unless the question is yes to every answer, it is fair to have a policy debate about how much you are going to limit free trade. Every nation does it to some degree, no matter how much free trade rhetoric they promote.

With respect to the US:

- We’re the richest nation on the planet and have been until recently been adept in response to many types of disasters. - Unemployment has been <5% for a few years. - The US military reigns supreme. Our 5 air forces are the top 5 in terms of airframes. - We actively pursue fiscal policy to promote inequitable wealth distribution

The idiocy of conflict with China is just that. We’re better and richer together.

Too right, the bigger and harder issue is the distribution and concentration of wealth. It hard for someone who is living below the poverty line in the USA to feel they are benefiting from living in the richness nation in the world.

That's the problem with nationalism. The goal is not peace, freedom, and prosperity (i.e., life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness); it's your group's power. Otherwise, why disrupt the extremely successful international order?

Fascists need an enemy, an “other.” Your last sentence describes globalism. But 51% of the voters voted for something else, and you and your children will now lead your lives in “interesting times.”

We actively pursue fiscal policy to promote inequitable wealth distribution

But you don't see free trade as a policy promoting inequitable wealth distribution? As designed, free trade is literally moving jobs overseas for lower wages. The primary benefit is higher profits for big companies, and the primary loser is middle to lower class that loses jobs. The best case argument is that the people who lose jobs, and end up underemployed, enjoy cheap imports.

The middle and lower classes have more jobs now in the US, at higher wages, than ever. Your argument simply fails in light of evidence.

You can check this via BLS, or Census, or on FRED.

And those lower class Americans are higher paid than a huge part of the planet. US poverty level is at the 85th percentile in global income.

That's picking a strawperson to debate with - extreme, absolutist free trade, which is obviously absurd and nobody has ever seriously advocated or tried to implement.

You forgot maximizing income on the list. The others are important too.

> security

Far more of an issue after the nationalists destroy the order that provided peace for generations, the most peaceful world in history.

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