A frequent commentor here at the Cafe is “Save the Rustbelt” — and one of his frequent comments is that the remarks of college professors who endorse free trade should be discounted because we tenured professors have secure jobs. Therefore, the insinuation proceeds, because we professors are immune to job loss, our endorsement of free trade is cheap and irresponsible. (Put aside the fact that many tenured professors have working spouses, parents, siblings, children, and friends who are not tenured professors.)
While it’s obvious that ideas ultimately should be judged only on their merits, irrespective of the identity of their messengers, the scarcity of our intellectual capacity relative to the demands on that capacity makes it sensible for each of us to use shortcuts when evaluating arguments. The identity of those who advance arguments — their likely stake in the acceptance or rejection of an argument — is relevant information for the less-than-omniscient persons who are evaluating the argument.
So I don’t scold Save the Rustbelt for using my tenured status as an input to help him evaluate my arguments for free trade.
But I do scold Save the Rustbelt for failing to apply the logic of his concern consistently. I here rerun one of the very first posts I contributed to Cafe Hayek:
Who Can Speak about Trade?
Dan Drezner recently reported that readers hostile to his pro-free-trade position often kindly respond by expressing their wish that his job be outsourced.
The idea motivating such a response to those of us who defend free trade is that people who discuss trade are blinded by their personal experiences, unable to see the larger picture. Because Drezner is a college professor and, it is assumed, relatively secure in his job, he
cannot speak with any legitimacy about trade and the job losses that it causes other people.
This idea is specious. To see why, note what happens when you turn it around. Arguments for protectionism are invalid if offered by someone whose job is threatened by foreign competition. So anyone whose job is at significant risk because of free trade has no right (this idea implies) to oppose free trade, for he or she is blinded by personal experience.
Of course, an argument’s validity or invalidity is independent of the identity of the person offering it. Judged on its merits – on its logic and facts – the case for free trade is robust. If protectionists wish to be taken seriously, they’d best abandon tawdry irrelevancies and instead offer rational arguments backed by sound data.
