If asked to summarize the economic case for free trade with as few words as possible, here’s how I’d do it: Nothing about economic change that happens across political borders is unique.
If you applaud economic dynamism, competition, and consumer choice, you should applaud even those varieties that happen to happen across political borders. If you are disturbed that particular jobs are destroyed by consumers switching their patronage from seller A to seller B, or if you are upset by any of the other consequences of economic growth and dynamism, then you should oppose all sources of such consequences and not just those that happen to happen across political borders.
The above is the theme I hit in the 575 words alloted to me in my most recent column in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
And I strike this theme also in this Word version of the Conclusion from my 2008 book, Globalization.
