Mr. Vance:
On Thursday, over at X, you declared that “Our message to corporate America is simple: We’re not going to let you lay off American workers so you can replace them with cheap foreign labor.”
Because you greatly admire Thomas Aquinas, who endorsed human reason as a gift “imparted to us by God,” you’ll undoubtedly wish to embrace all that reason reveals to be implied by your premise that American workers should not lose their existing jobs to lower-cost means of production.
Obviously implied by your premise, as you’re aware, is a policy of excluding imports and immigrants who displace American workers from their existing jobs. But your premise implies much more. To be consistent you must also insist that government prevent improvements in all labor-saving techniques. A worker who loses his job to a foreigner who works more cheaply than him is no more distressed than is a worker who loses her job to a machine that works more cheaply than her.
You should, therefore, persuade Pres. Trump to join with Sen. Bernie Sanders to impose a moratorium on the development and use of AI. But not only that. You should persuade Americans to be grateful that the wars in Iran and Ukraine are raising the cost of energy. Because energy fuels labor-saving mechanization, the higher the cost of energy, the slower is the development and use of new labor-saving machines.
Indeed, you’ll want to block all expansion and improvement in America’s capital stock – expansion and improvement that historically have increased worker productivity. By your logic, we must avoid a future in which six American workers can produce what today requires ten American workers to produce. Stagnation of worker productivity demands that you and your party put an end to new investment in America.
And you’re not yet done. You should also oppose all research and development, including for health care. After all, every medical advance that reduces the severity of diseases and injuries puts some physicians, nurses, and caregivers out of their particular lines of work. By your logic, we cannot risk discovering the likes of a cure for cancer, as such a development would destroy the jobs of most oncologists.
Happily for you (if not for Americans generally), many of the policies that you and your party now practice – including tariffs, mass deportation of immigrants, government ownership of corporate shares, and fiscal profligacy – are certain to slow, and perhaps even to halt, economic growth and the inevitable destruction of particular jobs that accompanies such growth. You’re already well on your way to achieving your desired utopia.
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
