A comment on this post by Eric Krangel at Silicon Alley Insider ends with this snide remark:
"Café Hayek: Where tenured US professors lobby ferociously against protecting US jobs."
I don't wish here, for the umpteenth time, to revisit the superficiality of the fact that Russ and I are tenured college professors. If any of you readers wish to discount what we say at the Cafe — discount it because tenure is a term in our labor contracts — then, by all means, discount away. Feel superior. Feel smug. Feel clever. That's your business. And if you can muster no stronger argument against the case that we make here for free and open markets than that argument that screams "Oooohh my! Don and Russ are tenured! That means that they are oblivious and insensitive special-pleaders! Let's ignore them!", then proceed. Wallow away in your puddle of pointlessness, fantasizing that you've adequately addressed serious arguments with your ad hominem accusations.
Instead, I wish to point out that neither Russ nor I "lobby ferociously against protecting US jobs." Far from it. Our argument — which is nothing more than a well-known part of the long-standing argument for free-trade generally — is that trade changes the pattern of domestic employment; it doesn't destroy domestic jobs on net.
One may challenge the theoretical or empirical bases for our claim that greater openness to international trade replaces current jobs with newly created jobs; that's a reasonable and important debate to have. But to accuse those of us who argue for more open trade (or more open immigration, or greater openness to innovation) of doing so on the understanding that this greater openness 'destroys' domestic employment opportunities is utterly disingenuous. Persons who level such accusations against those of us who make the case for free trade either do not understand what that case is or are more interested in scoring cheap debating points than in furthering a discussion that helps promote better economic policies.
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It seems to elude people that the protection of US jobs implies the denial of non-US jobs.
Opponents of freedom often resort to ad hominem. It seems rather automatic, actually.
Mr. Darklock,
Yes — but it also eludes people that the protection of one US job implies the destruction or denial of another US job. (Most protectionists are ethical dwarfs, discounting severely the effects that protectionism has on foreigners — as if foreigners are less worthy, less ethically significant, than are fellow citizens.)
Most protectionists are ethical dwarfs, discounting severely the effects that protectionism has on foreigners — as if foreigners are less worthy, less ethically significant, than are fellow citizens.
Very well said, Dr. Boudreaux.
All binding contracts are anti-competitive in one sense. But typically such contract clauses are offset by lower wages, openness to snide remarks by anonymous comments on the internet, long or irregular work hours, or whatever else. Tenure is just a particular kind of contract, and so long as it is agreed upon by two private parties, what's the problem?
Protectionism is different in every way that matters.
That should have been blockquoted. Sorry, folks.
I wonder why such logical fallacies (like "ad hominem" or "appeal to authority") are so popular among people, even those who should know better. Doesn't the average person realise they are fallacies? I mean, politicians and others use them because they work, not because they are necessarily the only argument they have.
Too may professors and too much college resulting from easy money is one of the things Hayek would have complained about, loudly.
I will not say anything against your being tenured profs.
Rather, I think you are just another government bureaucrat wasting the money of the taxpayers of Virgina.
Probably, unfortunately it's also good theater.
Well, you know, it's a commonplace argument technique to disconnect the logical linkage between components of a composite ethical act, and then implicitly judge the whole by that part which you have retained.
Id est, armed robbery of wealth from Peter to give charity to Paul is "kind" — once you disconnect the enabling robbery from the charity. Judged together, the two acts of Robin Hood — theft and donation — are at best morally ambiguous; one must inquire into the specifics of both robbery and donation to make a decision. But if you disconnect them, pretend that the donation can happen in the absence of the robbery — why, there's no moral ambiguity at all!
You might argue this is just one of the sad by-products of the existence of money, that magical rubber-band widget that allows production and consumption to be widely separated, in time, in space, and even in agent (the same person need not do the producing and consuming).
With a species of limited intelligence (or limited honesty) such as ourselves, it's far too easy to pretend that the connections made tenuous and stretchable by the existence of money don't actually exist. Hence we can imagine consumption can happen in the absence of production, generous tax spending can happen in the absence of impoverishing tax gathering, capital "investment" can occur in the absence of investors (evil "rich" people who have accumulated capital), and on and on.
So it goes. Next time God lets a species out of Eden, where no such thing as money exists, he should check the IQ of the species first.
Hi Don:
I'm not going to say a word about your tenure.
"is that trade changes the pattern of domestic employment; it doesn't destroy domestic jobs on net."
That remains to be seen in this era in the U.S., and there is also the question of redistribution of incomes and wealth.
Perhaps the certainty of your postions are a little too certain.
Save_the_rustbelt,
You counsel skepticism of international trade because it might, just might (for the first time in human history) lead to a net loss of jobs and a reduction in the material standard of living of ordinary persons.
Do you, then, also counsel skepticism of intranational trade? Skepticism of R&D? Skepticism of firms seeking to improve worker productivity? Skepticism of firms inventing new products? Skepticism of allowing consumers to change the ways that they spend their money?
If you answer "no" to any of the questions in the preceding paragraph, then your skepticism of trade that happens to take place across borders separating nation-states from each other is inconsistent with your lack of skepticism of these other sources of economic change.
Many have their favorite lobby horse.
Rather, I think you are just another government bureaucrat wasting the money of the taxpayers of Virgina.
Relevance?
How did your name come up in that post, and why bother responding to it? Save it for at least some kind of attempted argument against your position.
The tenure issue is only as important as you make it.
I read the blog for Economics–if you are going to de-emphasize Economics in favor of labor rants, I can drop you off the daily rotation.
Your call.
Don, I love it when you're riled up – "puddle of pointlessness" is a gem as is "ethical dwarfs".
It's time libertarian's got a little angry. If you can't get angry about people adopting deeply unethical positions ("us" and "them" thinking is the greatest source of evil in the world) which also happen to be demonstrably false, then what the *@#$% can you get angry about!
It is embarrassing for Krangel that he would publish his complete ignorance of the free market argument–an argument that long preceded Professors R & B. An argument that is not particularly hard to understand, whether or not he agrees with it.
ANY free voluntary agreement between Profs R & B and their employer is consistent with free trade. Protectionism REQUIRES a coercive uninvited third party, which in our country is the federal government.
Krangel undoubtedly would also argue that Profs R & B should not drive on public roads, not send their kids to public schools, not collect Social Security, not collect Medicare, not call police, not use drugs (FDA), not use food (FDA), and not breathe air (EPA). In short, his real argument is that Profs R & B should not exist, because the better world they envision does not exist.
Tell me.
What is the difference between getting an economics degree from GMU and getting your drivers license from the Virginia DMV.
In both cases you have to pass test written my employees of the State of Virgina.
In economics we have the concept or "revealed Preference"
In essence is means do not pay attention to what people claim, pay attention to what they do.
You make all these claims about believing in free markets.
But you elect to be another bureaucrat of the state of Virginia.
That tells me your "revealed preference" is that you do not really believe in free markets.
1. Spencer, as a first step to writing a humorous retort, should check his spelling before sending. Sadly, it will be only a first step.
2. Prof. B: I just don't see any logic (not merely economic reasoning–BASIC logic) from the side you argue against. You have tenure. That is to say, your job is secure. I can imagine some argument to the effect you are therefore INDIFFERENT to other people around you not having jobs. But they seem to claim you actually benefit from having others disemployed. I don't see how they get that from having tenure at all. What am I missing?
spencer,
Must a free marketeer abstain from all market participation, since no market is perfectly free, in order to honestly advocate for a different status quo? Absurd.
Spencer:
The principle of revealed preference implies that what a person does indicates what they prefer, among the set of choices available to him, not which aspects of each choice that person finds ideal. (Suppose I offer you $1,000,000 and a rotten egg or $1 and a fresh egg. If you chose the former, would I be right to conclude that you prefer rotten eggs?) Unless Dr Boudreaux had and turned down the option of working for an otherwise identical private university, his behavior doesn't indicate that he prefers government employment.
But I suspect that you already knew that.
Maybe you can clarify something for me and the rest of us: You seem committed to your left wing view of the world, and you seem too bright to have been moved to that view by the sort of ad hominem fallacies and flippant non sequiturs that you so frequently offer here. So why do you bother with rhetorical slurs that most self respecting modern liberals would be ashamed of when you could just present the actual arguments that convinced you of the positions you now hold?
(I might be assuming too much. If your own leftism really is not the product of clearer thinking than you display here, I apoligize for assuming otherwise.)
"is that trade changes the pattern of domestic employment; it doesn't destroy domestic jobs on net"
I agree. And who knows, would we replace the lost jobs of failed entities (such as GM et al) with new, better jobs? And we would be better off anyway without the Union worker. Maybe a new more financially sound automaker might rise from the ashes.
Also, as far as "open trade" are we only trading manufacturing jobs with the retail jobs to sell the goods made elsewhere? Same pay…
My point – the govt is interfering with self correction and we will prolong our agony. Especially by having the American taxpayer pay the Union workers wages.
Just so I'm clear, guaranteed lifetime employment at guaranteed pay regardless of job performance or ability is ok so long as the parties negotiated that deal?
Carl Pham,
Very good point.
Not only is it a cheap shot, it's sadly ignorant, of much.
… and before I get crucified for downing the union worker (like I used to get from my old blog "the Hatriolic", so save your crayon letters) I'll go on record to state 'BZ' for the ppl who took advantage of unions for great Pay &Benefits for routine, mundane work. But please also check your history: the majority of Union workers do not vote for themselves, meaning they don't generally think for themselves for risk of losing out on their jobs (check the voting rosters for Carter & Clinton). Also don't forget that Carl Marx and Adolf Hitler harnessed the union workers first to fight for 'equality' in their socialist climb to the top.
Last, how much innovation and ambition has been killed by the Unions and Gov't jobs, clearly the biggest employers in the US?
Carl Pham,
I echo Randy's praise. Good point(s). Well said.
Right!
When I started learning economics as a freshman, I was very fortunate to learn international economics properly by reading Douglas Irwin.
In his marvelous book "Free Trade Under Fire", professor Irwin tells us that, according to the Lerner Symmetry Theorem, exports and imports are simply different sides of the same coin, and that the jobs lost from imports are offset by jobs gained by exports. There are job gains or losses, on net, from trade agreements or protectionism.
Indeed, as you pointed out Don, trade only changes the composition of jobs in an economy. The number of jobs in the economy is a function of the number of people in the labor market….not trade.
Even so, the jobs created through exports typically pay higher than jobs lost through imports.
This business of gaining or losing jobs is something that so many people even in business, media and government still do not understand.
Umm…..sorry, made a slight mistake. Let me edit one sentence:
***There are no job gains or losses, on net, from trade agreements or protectionism.
I'd like to interpose a question regarding the issue of net job losses due to free trade as compared to net job gains due to free trade.
Where do I go to see the guarantee that they will balance in all ways?
Where do I go to find the guarantee that states that yesterday's "must have" item will be tomorrow's as well?
Where do I go to find the guarantee that covers me from income loss forever?
Where do I go to find the guarantee that insures me against a change in life style for my entire life, while around the world other's life styles are undergoing seachanges?
Where do I find the guarantee that I will not have to share the Earth with mental midgets?
Where do I find the guarantee that some others will not find me hard and arrogant?
Where will you find the guarantee that I will give a damn.
I spoke out against tenure as protectionsism on a previous blog and felt good about my position until I read this:
"ANY free voluntary agreement between Profs R & B and their employer is consistent with free trade. Protectionism REQUIRES a coercive uninvited third party, which in our country is the federal government.
Posted by: vikingvista | Apr 9, 2009 6:59:42 PM"
And I had to swallow my assurance and recognize that vikingvista presented the one part of the equation I had missed.
There is no coercive third party twixt Pros Don and Russ and GMU, and I should have caught that myself, but thanks to VV for slapping me upside the head.
Hey Indiana Jim, apologies to you, sir, as well.
Preciate it, sir.
The gripe that some people would have, vidyohs & vvista, would be the employer is a government entity, not a private business. Hence someone who gets employed by a public university and, say, the military are having job security enforced by the taxpayers.
But talking of trade, why should one country being cut off from trading with another 'doomed' to poverty? This false dichotomy reminds of a Libertarian cartoonist who drew two starving Third World types where one complains "Where can we find a multinational corporation to 'exploit' us?". What about the option of people being able to provide for themselves rather than waiting for some foreign trading hero from across the shores to uplift them?
"Protectionism REQUIRES a coercive uninvited third party, which in our country is the federal government"
Ah, yes. The favorite way of arguing on this website–just define your way out of an intellectual defeat. Let me play this lovely game as well. How about this: "Protectionalism is by DEFINITION an attempt to constraint a person's current or future free choices in the marketplace, whether done by the state, or by an association of individuals, through eliminating options normally available in an otherwise unconstrainted marketplace."
When a professor accepts tenure , that is protectionalism.
In all lives we have to make bargins. Don and Russ are atleast in part state employees and tenured. I thank the responible officials representing the State of Virginia for placing these gentlemen in place such that they can educate me and others to take consideration economics everyday.
They have their agenda, but they don't pretend. I am a liberal democrat that now is much more libertarian because of what they have volunteered. I would agrue though that the actions of the individuals representing the State of Virginia hiring Russ and Don means that government does some good.
Thanks, gentlemen
"You counsel skepticism of international trade because it might, just might (for the first time in human history) lead to a net loss of jobs and a reduction in the material standard of living of ordinary persons."
I thought The Onion got this one spectacularly right…
- http://www.theonion.com/content/video/obama_promises_to_stop_americas
At non-profit organizations tenure serves to encourage the acquisition of firm specific human capital via alligniing the long term interests of those with tenure with the survival of the organization. Again (as I wrote recently on a previous post at the Cafe), I'd encourage all to read the works of my colleagues P.R.P. Coelho and William O. Brown on Non-profits and tenure. If I were more energetic and didn't have to get up early tomorrow to drive to Columbus, OH with Coelho to an economic history conference, I'd re-post the references. So, at the risk of Doc-Truth calling me a befuddled old bum, I'll simply say: Goodnight all!
Boudreaux's just a tenured professor. And, the dork reporter knocking him is, well, just a reporter. What in the sam hill does a journalism major know about anything? Back when you were in college, were the journalism majors the sharpest knives in the drawer?
Also, consider: this guy's new beat is VIDEOGAMES!!! So he's a journalism major that specializes in VIDEOGAMES!!! Deep guy.
Resorting to ad hominem often demonstrates the power of the argument made by the target.
If the argument were weak, that is where the attacker would go. As he does not, he admits that he has no counter to the argument that will prevail.
"define your way out of an intellectual defeat. Let me play this lovely game as well. How about this: "Protectionalism is by DEFINITION an attempt to constraint a person's current or future free choices in the marketplace, whether done by the state, or by an association of individuals, through eliminating options normally available in an otherwise unconstrainted marketplace.""
The smart guys first show how well they understand the opposition argument before presenting their critique. Then there is the contextual ignorance of this guy who cares less about communicating concepts than arguing semantics.
Let me help you avoid this error in the future:
Classical liberalism emphasizes individual rights and property rights, which are an extension of individual rights. As such, an individual should have veto power over his life and property. An association of individuals, such as a company, should have veto power over their property. The individual, or individuals, therefore should be able to agree to WHATEVER restrictions on their relationships that they want, since each party can unilaterally refuse the relationship altogether.
Clearly, your definition of "protectionalism" would apply to a company exercising its rights to refuse or accept an agreement. That notion therefore serves no purpose in explaining classical liberal principles.
Protectionism, or any other offense, in the long liberal tradition, refers to violations of those principles of individual rights. Even liberals who do not hold rigidly to them, are arguing within that context.
And those principles, constrained by the ideas of Hayek, are the context of this web site.
These ideas are old enough and widespread enough that even reasonably educated non-libertarians are usually aware of them.
Further, this notion of protectionism (as in my prior post) is no obfuscation, since it is applied to today's calls for Federal government-imposed international trade restrictions.
If you want to use some other notion of protectionism, stay away from discussions with a clear libertarian bent.
Gil–
"the employer is a government entity"
You bring up an obvious point. I would refer you to the last paragraph of my initial post. Profs R & B could swear to only work at private universities, but what private universities do not receive some tax funding? Should they refuse to teach students on Pell grants? Avoid driving to work on public roads? Not drink municipal water? Perhaps you think they should refuse to pay their taxes? (assuming these contradict their values)
They don't have a choice but to live in the world that exists. But more than most people, they live up to the virtue of exposing wrongs and urging for change consistent with their values.
There would be hypocrisy if they argued against their values. On this blog I've seen no effort to defend tax-funded education or any other anti-liberal positions (or even tenure for that matter, although tenure in itself even if ill-advised is not inherently anti-liberal).
I want to preface this by saying that I 100% agree with your response, Don. However, an AWFUL lot is said on this blog about the incentives that politicians face and how that affects what decisions they make. I don't see why the incentives that come along with tenure should be treated any differently.
There's also quite a bit said about public sector employment and the influence that job security has on public servants. Should we remark on that and just ignore probably one of the most secure jobs in the country – a tenured professorship?
This guy was smug and ultimately he was wrong – but he brings up an interesting point. And YOUR OWN response has some important insights that I think any adherents to the "public choice" school should take to hear: Yes, the position of politicians gives them certain incentives to follow. But they also have a mission to serve the public (just like tenured professors have a mission to teach and pursue truth) – and it is COMPLETELY unfair to assume that in such a vision-driven population, their incentive structures are going to dictate their decisions completely.
If it's not a fair accusation for you (and I agree it's not), why the hell is it a fair accusation for politicians?
And I must say – Don's response and my expansion of it to politicians is quite consistent with the recent Econtalk post on Theory of Moral Sentiments too. The whole POINT of Moral Sentiments that humans have many motivations, beyond the profit motive. I'm a fairly mainstream guy when it comes to my economics – and it's not easy to see how we can incorporate these motive into our work anytime soon. But I do think it's worth recognizing and qualifying that tenured professors, public servants, etc. may be motivated by something other than their incentive structure. It's quite possible they are motivated by other visions.
Tenure this, protectionism that… I think you are missing the point: an argument for or against anything must stand on its own correctness and validity, irrespective on who makes the argument. It is IRRELEVANT if the argument is made by someone who believes in it or not, practices it or not, or even cares one way or the other or not; it is the logical and empirical correctness of the argument that counts, not who made it. If you disagree with a statement made by someone you should argue about the statement, not the person; doing anything else is fallacy. As a result, whether tenureship (is there such a word?) is protectionism or not, is irrelevant as to the fact that the comment that started this whole thread is fallacious (ad hominem) and so is any argumentation constructed upon it. Don't they teach formal logic in the USA anymore!?
If "tenured" is the worst anyone can say of you, you are far better person than any of your critics:-)
Don Boudreaux says “Our argument — which is nothing more than a well-known part of the long-standing argument for free-trade generally — is that trade changes the pattern of domestic employment; it doesn't destroy domestic jobs on net.”
Yes but those of us who defend free trade have also to be able to stand up and acknowledge the problem that a garden is normally better off with a variety flowers and plants than with one single strand and that trade causes specialization and can therefore reduce the professional biodiversity or the professional gene-pool in the specific local areas.
Viewed from the space it can all look like a beautiful garden but locally, without, as an example, some manufacturing jobs, it can all be a hellishly boring parking lot… doomed to further degenerate because of professional incest.
How wonderful to have been called out on such an insipid and irrelevant point. Two things emerged, Cafe Hayek is being read and influencing thinking; and Eric needs to read more.
"Café Hayek: Where tenured US professors lobby ferociously against protecting US jobs."
That is indeed a cheap shot but, given the fact that the whole concept of a tenure is based on the importance of guaranteeing independent thinking to our academicians so that can better serve their function to society, we should also ask us what has gone wrong when an entire generation of tenured academicians is not capable of detecting or make their voices heard in order to help the society to avert the current crisis… a crisis that was perfectly foreseeable and therefore perfectly avoidable.