Personal Foul

by Don Boudreaux on December 4, 2009

in Standard of Living,Trade

On his blog, John Stossel alerted me to Sen. Chuck Schumer’s most recent spasm of stupid protectionist sentiments.  In response to New York’s senior senator, I sent this letter to the New York Daily News:

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) is upset that Adidas will shift its manufacturing of National Basketball Association jerseys from New York to Thailand, and he menacingly calls upon the N.B.A. to terminate its contract with Adidas (“Sen. Schumer rips Adidas for outsourcing of NBA jerseys,” Dec. 2).

I wonder where Mr. Schumer’s business suits are made.  All in the U.S.?  What about his shoes?  His neckties?  His underwear?  The watch on his wrist?  How about the coffee he drinks?  The flowers he buys for his wife in January?  Are these all made in America?

Does Mr. Schumer eat cheese from only Vermont and Wisconsin?  Drink wine from only California and Oregon?  Does he vacation only in places such as Maui and Martha’s Vineyard?  Does he listen to recordings made only by musicians and recording-studio technicians holding U.S. passports?  Does he read books written only by American authors, and decorate his home with only paintings, photographs, vases, and sculptures produced by Americans residing in U.S. locales such as Santa Fe and Manhattan?  Is his life nearly devoid of modern consumer electronics, given that very few of these devices are today manufactured in America?

I don’t know Mr. Schumer personally, but I’ll bet my pension that his everyday consumption consists of countless products containing such large quantities of non-American inputs and labor that, were Mr. Schumer to rid his existence of these foreign contributions to his living standard, he would soon find himself dark-ages ignorant and appallingly impoverished.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux

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  • Good one, Don. Protectionism is like putting a band-aid on cancer. It makes you feel like you are doing something but accomplishes absolutely nothing. http://commonsenseliberty.wordpress.com
  • sethstorm
    Well, then do what is needed to terminate the contract. A few commercials and advertisements here and there detailing what goes on in Third World countries (on the average, and if possible, the factory that got it) should do nicely. Present the case with the facts on the table, and do not hold any observed brutality against their workers back. Secondly, work with the US firm to bring those jobs back.

    Let there be perilous and consistent consequences for offshore outsourcing. Why should Hyatt be the only one having the fun of a 'damaged goods' reputation?

    The non-US conduct & commerce of that Senator is just a cheap shot. It does not attempt to consider practicalities (where no amount of money will get a US/First World built product [and is not some company transplanted to the US for regulation]) or takes into account any measures for which Schumer uses to buy a (specifically)US made product.

    You'd probably criticize him if he did do the impossible and buy completely US (or at worst, avoid every single Third World country, emerging economy, or any place that seems to dump US work due to their 19th century practices).

    But then what's a few bodies of 'dissenters' at the Thailand(or their Third World equivalents across the globe) factory between business partners? I believe they call that dispute resolution over there.

    While you do make a good point that Senator Schumer (most likely)has non-US goods in his possession, you fail to explain anything beyond that possession of foreign goods.
  • Well, very good, Don. My compliments to Mr. Stossel.
  • Politicians always need scapegoats. If there are none handy, they'll create them.
  • Marcus
    That is exactly right.

    Nothing turns people against one another like politics.
  • Don: You call it like it is, I wish you commented on newspapers in Canada, and commented on our politicians here. Our Prime Minister who was a strict defender of Hayek, has recently started going around praising Keynes.

    I'm also surprised that Sen. Schumer never thought of how things were made or where they came from. Imagine if he started calling for protectionism between the US and Canada. That would be quite interesting.
  • mrclay
    Just a nitpick: Stossel presents a good argument, but this is just a rant saying: because almost everything you use is produced outside the U.S., you should always embrace more outsourcing. Here's the same argument: almost all schools are public, so we should make all education public (and libertarians are hypocrites if they use them). Prevalence of something does not imply it's a good thing.
  • JB_Shotworth
    "Just a nitpick: Stossel presents a good argument, but this is just a rant saying: because almost everything you use is produced outside the U.S., you should always embrace more outsourcing."

    He didn't claim that because he knows that most of what he uses is produced in the US. He thinks outsourcing is good when it's good; however, he probably buys almost all of his food, water, power, housing, etc. from US producers.

    "... (and libertarians are hypocrites if they use them)."

    Given a free choice, most libertarians would pay for their private education out-of-pocket and not pay the taxes that are used on education. They don't have this choice, so they often use public schools. There's no hypocrisy.

    "Prevalence of something does not imply it's a good thing."

    Stossel and Boudreaux aren't arguing for adherence to old ways; they're not conservatives. They're arguing that Schumer is a hypocrite and is pandering to his base because he's happy to buy stuff from foreigners for himself, but happier still to limit others to domestic goods if there's enough political payoff for him.
  • mrclay
    They're arguing that Schumer is a hypocrite

    No, Stossel argued that his actions aren't a good idea (with which I agree), Boudreaux made the hypocrite argument, for which he offered no evidence, just bitter speculation about Schumer's personal habits and feelings. Does anyone know that Schumer is "happy" to see all manufacturing jobs moved out of the country?

    I don't know anything about Schumer at all--he may be a total scumbag--but it bothers me to see people rally around weak arguments and speculation.

    There's no hypocrisy.

    Totally agreed. And I think, for the same reason, it's not hypocritical to want more protectionism even though most of what you buy is not made in the U.S. It may be foolish, but not hypocritical.
  • LowcountryJoe
    Not so fast! Free(er) trade is a moral issue when you get right down to it. Anyone like Schumer who would use legislation to prevent you from (or make it more costly to) enter(ing) into a voluntary transaction -- even when that transaction is occuring across states' political boundaries -- is depriving you of liberty.

    But the real reason why Schumer is dispicable is because his home state of New York, and several thousands of its citizens, benefit greatly from the financial markets that facilitate the capital inflows from those same foreigners that Schumer wants to stop U.S. producers from competing with. Schumer either does not understand the nature of the capital accounts and their relationship with trade flows or he's a scum-sucking politician who plays to the lowest common element -- the ignorant people that do not understand these kinds of things and who will fall for anything that seem plausible (but really isn't). And I think that he DOES understand the capital account so that would suggest...
  • I_am_a_lead_pencil
    This is ironic considering the fact that professional sports like the NBA only exist in this country because free trade has allowed us to expand the division of labor and increase our wealth such that we can afford the luxury of the sports entertainment that requires these jerseys.

    Abandoning the mechanism that made the very existence of profitable sports entertainment possible is tragically ignorant.
  • Frédéric Bastiat
    We are suffering from the ruinous competition of a foreign rival who apparently works under conditions so far superior to our own for the production of light, that he is flooding the domestic market with it at an incredibly low price.... This rival ... is none other than the sun....

    We ask you to be so good as to pass a law requiring the closing of all windows, dormers, skylights, inside and outside shutters, curtains, casements, bull’s-eyes, deadlights and blinds; in short, all openings, holes, chinks, and fissures.
  • Methinks1776
    What do you expect from Mr. Schmucker? The day after graduating law school, he got into politics. He has spent his life threatening people from the politburo. The guy has never had a real job, an original thought or the need to think at all in his entire adult life.
  • hylarides
    Burn.
  • jorod
    The Democrats are shameless hypocrites. They won't let oil companies drill for oil that would create thousands of jobs. There are plans afoot to stop drilling for natural gas. They won't let insurance companies compete across state lines. They want to replace thousands of workers in the insurance industry with government bureaucrats. They refuse to control government agencies that caused the financial meltdown. They pander to unions that make it impossible for American companies to compete. And the chief hypocrite-in-charge has the gall to ask how to create jobs.. Disgusting.
  • JohnK
    Last I heard the chief is blaming small businesses for unemployment. You know, those greedy small business people who are more interested in profits than creating employment.

    I thought Atlas Shrugged was fiction...
  • evanm
    I wish very much that Mr. Schumer would sell his labor to only New Yorkers, and not the rest of the country.
  • Mark
    Protectionists are the worst.
  • Win.

    Ever read The Myth of the Rational Voter?
  • muirgeo
    Yeah and even it's subtitle is dumb. The most economically and socially advanced societies EVER where.\/ are democracies. So I ask, "Democracies choose bad policies??? Compared to what?"

    The only value to the book was in opening my eyes to how elitist and non-democratic libertarians are.
  • Gil
    Duh muirgeo - Libertarians are for private-property ownership hence they prefer Monarchies over Democracies.
  • Marcus
    If this is the depth of modern left-wing thought then the word shallow implies it to be far deeper than it actually is.

    In the monarchies of the past only the king had sovereignty. It was the forefathers of today's classical liberal, people like Thomas Jefferson, who said ALL men are sovereign. And armed with that belief we revolted against the King of England.

    That fact, by itself, demonstrates your statement to be absurd to the point that it is hardly worth replying to. But, I want to ask you a question.

    Answer me this Gil, what does it mean to be a sovereign individual?
  • Gil
    Everyone is equal because they have 'individual sovereignty'? That almost sounds like a form of Communism. Then again depending on who's telling the story 'rebelling and seizing property' is mere theft. I'd hate to be a landlord and have a Libertarian as tenants.
  • Marcus
    "Everyone is equal because they have 'individual sovereignty'?"

    That's right. Let's read the entire line: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

    Now, let's put it back into the context of the time. A time when kings were sovereign. What does that mean, Gil? It means the Divine Right of Kings. That kings received their authority to rule directly from God.

    Jefferson said no. That all men are equal to the king and are sovereign individuals. That rulers don't rule with the authority of God, they rule by permission of the sovereign individuals.
  • Gil
    The Kings asserted their rights came from because the Bible says all authority comes from God. If the Monarchs get overthrown by another type of ruling power then it would be said God supports the new power as God giveth and taketh away. A true Libertarian would be saying a Landowner rules over his private land because he owns it and he doesn't have to judge to anyone. The Landtenants have the "love it or leave it" ultimatum. Competition between owners and renters is supposed to find an equlibrium in the market however no one has to justify their position to anyone else.
  • Yeah what Gil was confused about was

    Equal opportunity = Liberty
    Equal outcome = Communism

    Big difference.
  • Gil
    How do people acquire 'equal opportunity' outside a Communist then? Everyone is both different and born in different parts of the world with different amenities.
  • Equal opportunity means there is no entity in charge of controlling your life, telling you what you can and can't do, redistributing your wealth, hindering trade with your peers, and just in general infringing on your liberties.

    Equal opportunity does NOT mean stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. That is equal outcome.
  • Marcus
    I guess I should apologize to your parents. I didn't realize I was talking with a child.
  • danielkuehn
    ZIIING!!!!

    Oh no wait. It turns out Gil was actually making a good point about some of the platitudes that pass for comments on here. I take my "zing" back.
  • Marcus
    Right. Private property rights is exactly like monarchy. I can't even tell the difference. They're one and the same thing.

    <rolling eyes>
  • Gil
    Monarchy is a fancy term for a private landowning family - hence the logical extension of private property rights.
  • greego
    False dichotomy.
  • Gil
    Au contraire! Democracies is a form of government where most people get some sort of participation in a public government. Monarchies are a private government formed by large private landowners. Hence it is a valid private-vs-public ownership dichotomy.
  • Yeah but if all those people get a participation and they aren't educated then it could lead to bad outcomes.
  • MWG
    A ground trembling critique if there ever was one!
  • Marcus
    muirgeo, did you get past the subtitle? Evidently not.

    First of all, Bryan's book isn't as much a criticism of democracy as it is a criticism of the social sciences which study it.

    Second, in as far as the book does critique democracy, having a criticism of democracy does not imply in anyway that Bryan thinks it is a complete failure. He simply notes that democracies don't always choose the best policies and has a theory why. I would think you would have to agree with that in principle even if you disagree with the specifics.

    If, on the other hand, you think there is no room for criticism of democracy (which would be mind boggling anti-democratic) then you must believe that the war in Iraq was precisely the right thing to do, right? After all, a democracy couldn't be wrong, could it?
  • I don't think he said democracies were infallible ("no room for criticism"), he just said they were the best system of government known to him.

    And I'll just correct one of your statements about the book: Bryan says democracies don't always choose the best *economic policies*. He explicitly states this and makes no claim about social policies or whatever you want to call them.
  • Marcus
    I don't know if Bryan explicitly states 'economic policies'. I'm skimming through the book and I don't see such a claim. That doesn't mean it isn't there, I just don't see it. I do agree that he gives mostly, if not entirely, economic examples of voter irrationality.

    I made no mention of 'social policies'. I referred to the social sciences which study voter behavior. I mention this because in the book Bryan directly challenges Rational Choice theory.

    I realize that muirgeo doesn't think that democracies are infallible, in fact, I was counting on it. It is because they are not infallible that we can expect that somebody, somebody like Bryan, might write a book about what he thinks the weaknesses of democracy are.
  • muirgeo
    I don't think they are infallible either. But you never or he never answers the question compared to what? Of course he does suggest the possibility of rule by an elite group of economist. (I think he was somewhat... somewhat tongue in cheek. But again where are the successful libertarian societies he overtly recommends. If they really produced liberty like you claim they would I'd think they'd be flourishing by now...somewhere.


    The bigger obvious problem for his books thesis is that policy is so often NOT set democratically but made by lobbyist of firms with money to circumvent the democratic process. THOSE polices are far more influential and damaging then if we instituted the policies that people want and vote for.
  • sandre
    Here is amazing democracy at work. Must watch!!!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUittUgUGRk
  • sandre
    The bigger obvious problem for his books thesis is that policy is so often NOT set democratically but made by lobbyist of firms with money to circumvent the democratic process


    Awesome muir. Kind of like right now. Our little carbon trading enterprise competing with "Blood and Gore, Inc" for the market they "established" with the help of lobbying efforts of two giant hearted men - Blood & Gore.

    But you never or he never answers the question compared to what?


    I think, somebody responded - oh wait a minute - it was me. Yes, constitutional republic is a terrible choice. You are right it is no choice at all. Founding fathers were fools.

    What we need is to elect more Crook Dodds, Blagejoviches to office. They have giant bleeding hearts that could do no wrong. We need to elect more Diane Feinsteins to office, so they can send teenagers across the oceans to take a bullets for their enterprise
    http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2009/10/11/d...

    It's a wonderful world. Muir - let's go make some moooooolllaaaahh through democracy. and show the world how wonderful it is for everyone.

    mmmmwwwwwaaaaaahhhhhhhh, you are awesome, on our way to first billion.
  • Marcus
    "Of course he does suggest the possibility of rule by an elite group of economist."

    It would be a bit of an irony if somebody like Byran proposed technocratic rule. But I don't believe he does. Or, at least, that's not what I got out of the book.

    What I got out of the book is Bryan is saying, "Look, the models we use to model democracy don't work. Here's why I think they don't work."

    As an analogy. It would be like if climatologists had models of the atmosphere which didn't include human activity and somebody came along said, "Hey, I think we need to include all that carbon humans are pumping into the atmosphere." Your response in the analogy is equivalent to saying, "What? You want us to close all the factories?" To which I respond, "No! I didn't say that!"

    "The bigger obvious problem for his books thesis is that policy is so often NOT set democratically but made by lobbyist of firms with money to circumvent the democratic process."

    Are you sure you read his book? I ask because he directly addresses that.

    I want to quote something out of the book for you to show you that your impression of Byran is wrong:

    "When cataloging the failures of democracy, one must keep things in perspective. Hundreds of millions of people under democratic rule enjoy standards of living that are, by historical standards, amazingly good. The shortcomings of the worst democracies pale in comparison with those of totalitarian regimes. At least democracies do not murder millions of their own citizens. Nevertheless, now that democracy is the typical form of government, there is little reason to dwell on the truisms that it is "better than Communism," or "beats life during the Middle Ages." Such comparisons set the bar too low. It is more worthwhile to figure out how and why democracy disappoints."

    muigeo, you keep propping up stawmen of the book.
  • sandre
    Muir is just fighting for our enterprise. 70 percentage of the people can be convinced that government will tax the other 30 and give the 70 something for nothing. When infact, what the government does is just take from the bottom 29 of the 30 and give it to the top 1. But they are Al Gores, Dianne Feinsteins and Crook Dodds of the world and they have huge heart that bleeds millions of dollars a second. They deserve every penny they get in rent from the government.
  • Haha yeah that's okay. I wish I had still had the book I could give you a page number. I distinctly remembering him stating that his work did not prove anything about voter behavior on non-economic issues, that he had nothing to say about them, but that he hoped that others would take to that task.

    Bryan does not say that democracies "don't always choose the best policies." He says democracies don't always choose the best *economic* policies. I wasn't trying to attack you for talking about social policies, I was trying to make clear the fact that The Myth of the Rational Voter only has things to say about democracies in their failure to choose good economic policy.
  • The purpose of that book was to prove that your normal average person has economically harmful biases. You already know this but I'll do it for those who haven't read the book: there is something called the "miracle of aggregation." If everyone votes randomly except for a few people who are intelligent and know what is economically beneficial for a society, then economically beneficent policies are put in place because the majority votes for them.

    The conclusion of the book was that uninformed people don't vote randomly on economic issues, they vote POORLY, i.e. against what is economically beneficent for themselves.

    You are right, libertarians are non democratic. We don't believe in "senseless mob rule." If everyone else has economically harmful biases, why should you be submitted to that punishment? That's why the Constitution was written: to form a Republic, a rule of law. Rule by the masses is tyranny like rule by the few. Libertarians alone believe in freedom and liberty, believe it or not. If that's elistist and non-democratic, so be it.
  • Gil
    Who the eff believes in "senseless mob rule", super strawman slayer? No kidding people believe in a basic Constitution for non-negiotiable rights. On the other hand, a Republic is a society without a Monarchy - a ruling family. The notion of 'rule of law' could equally describe the ideals of a stern Fascist ("the law is to obeyed or else there are dire consequences").
  • Yeah definitely concede that point. You are right in that "senseless" was way too strong. What I meant to say was "misinformed majority rule." Is that better? And by the way I wasn't supporting fascism if you somehow got that out of what I said. I support limited government. That should also answer muirgeo when he wants to know "compared to what?" Small government > large government.

    On a side note I am going to the taping of the first Stossel show in NYC.

    GUYS GET EXCITED
  • JB_Shotworth
    This link shows what libertarians are generally talking about concerning rule of law. When you extend it's argument about the unworthiness of activist legislators to something worse: a fickle, clueless, empowered, democratic mob, then you can see how a dictator saying obey or die is in the same category. They are all interested in mucking constantly with well established rules for their own gains, to the detriment of everyone:

    http://stossel.blogs.foxbusiness.com/2009/07/22...
  • sandre
    Democracies choose awesome people like Gazillionaire Al Gore to power. So that he can trade worthless carbon with his buddy David Blood from Goldman Sachs, under the umbrella of "Blood & Gore, Inc" and benefit all of us from their amazing wealth.

    Where as being a constitutional republic is a poor choice.

    Yes, founders intended the US to be a democracy, they clearly stated it in the constitution using exactly that word - democracy.

    mmmmwwwwwaaaaaahhhhhh
  • RL
    "were Mr. Schumer suddenly to rid his existence of these foreign contributions to his living standard, he would soon find himself dark-ages ignorant and appallingly impoverished."

    That's an unfair prediction, Don; he's already half way there...
  • RL
    "were Mr. Schumer suddenly to rid his existence of these foreign contributions to his living standard, he would soon find himself dark-ages ignorant and appallingly impoverished."

    That's an unfair prediction, Don; he's already half way there...
  • Marie
    I'm seen many despicable people on TV and Schumer is one of them. Protectionist, anti-2nd amendment and many others.
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