I insist, for good reason, on being careful and precise about the words we use.
Editor, Barron’s
Editor:
In his otherwise fine piece on Trump’s tariffs, Brian Swint writes that “the problem is that free trade can both create and destroy jobs” (“What History Says Happens to Markets as Trump Raises Tariff Temperature,” November 28).
It’s true that when people are free to trade some particular jobs are destroyed while others are created. But although his manner of describing one of the effects of trade is commonplace, it is – for two reasons – also misleading in a way that tilts the rhetorical playing field in favor of protectionism.
First, the impersonal word “trade” masks the fact that every job destroyed and created when people trade freely is a job destroyed and created by the decisions of flesh-and-blood fellow citizens, each spending her own income in ways that she judges to be best for herself and her family. No jobs would be destroyed (or created) when trade is free if no fellow citizens choose to purchase imports. It’s therefore more accurate, if less succinct, to say that, when trade is free, particular jobs are destroyed by fellow citizens peacefully spending their rightful incomes as they see fit. If protectionists wish to make their case, let them do so honestly by demonizing, not the impersonal concept “trade,” but instead their own flesh-and-blood fellow citizens.
Second, trade is only one of countless different avenues through which some jobs are destroyed and others created. Changes in consumers’ preferences having nothing to do with trade destroy some jobs and create others, as when several years ago the popularity of the Atkins diet destroyed the jobs of some bakers while creating jobs for butchers. Technological innovations have the same effect. The polio vaccine destroyed jobs of workers making crutches, wheelchairs, and iron-lung machines. Digital photography destroyed the jobs of manufactures and developers of film. Google maps and smartphones destroyed the jobs of mapmakers. Airbnb destroys some jobs for workers in hotels and motels. This list is practically endless.
Repeatedly writing and saying “trade destroys jobs” conveys the impression that trade’s effect in the job market is unique. But it isn’t.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030
