Here’s a letter that I just sent to the New Orleans Times-Picayune:
27 November 2006
The Editor, The New Orleans Times-Picayune
To the
Editor:Skeptical of globalization, Rae Matthews writes that "Every
American factory that’s closed and every American worker unemployed has, in my
experience, limited my choices" (Letters, Nov. 27).The truth is the
reverse. Factories close because freer trade expands consumers’ choices. Fifty
years ago, for example, most Americans could choose only from among cars
produced by GM, Ford, Chrysler, AMC, Studebaker, and Volkswagen; today our car
choices are much-expanded to include the likes of Toyotas, Hondas, and Kias.
Freer trade also, by closing some businesses, releases resources for use in
creating other businesses and products – new enterprises that would be
impossible if trade did not free us from the need to produce ourselves those
goods and services that we can acquire at lower cost from abroad.Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
