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October 28, 2004
Economics and Morality
I read Steve Landsburg's reasons for voting for Bush a few nights ago. He is one of only five Slate staff members surveyed that is casting his ballot for the incumbent this coming Tuesday. In his statement he certainly didn't mince his words:
If George Bush had chosen the racist David Duke as a running mate, I'd have voted against him, almost without regard to any other issue. Instead, John Kerry chose the xenophobe John Edwards as a running mate. I will therefore vote against John Kerry.
Duke thinks it's imperative to protect white jobs from black competition. Edwards thinks it's imperative to protect American jobs from foreign competition. There's not a dime's worth of moral difference there. While Duke would discriminate on the arbitrary basis of skin color, Edwards would discriminate on the arbitrary basis of birthplace. Either way, bigotry is bigotry, and appeals to base instincts should always be repudiated.
Bush's reckless spending and disregard for the truth had me almost ready to vote for Kerry-until Kerry picked his running mate. When the real David Duke ran against a corrupt felon for governor of Lousiana, the bumper stickers read, "Vote for the crook. It's important." Well, I'm voting for the reckless spendthrift. It's important again.
The Agitator picked it up the following day and Landsburg himself posted on the subject at Marginal Revolution. As I'm coming in late on this one I thought I would just point out the similarities to my thought process on trade, which helped spur the idea for my book. As I recount in the "About" section of this webpage, an article in The Wall Street Journal started me along the same train of thought:
An article entitled "Bitter Fruit: Spat Persist Despite Nafta" discussed how in San Diego avocados cost about $4.00 a pound, while in Tijuana, just miles away, the price was less than 30 cents a pound. This despite the free trade agreement Nafta. This quote specifically stuck out:
" 'The California growers want to control all of the supply -- that way they get the best prices,' complains Ricardo Salgado, who raises avocados on 25 acres outside Uruapan, Michoacan, which has some of the world's lushest groves. 'We'd love to have a bigger selling season, but right now we have to wait for the U.S. Congress to give us permission.' "
Any Ph.D. Economist could draw out supply and demand charts, explaining step by step the benefits of free trade and the theory of competitive advantage in relation to the world avocado market. The only problem is that two minutes into the conversation it is quite possible you would be bored to tears. Even if you made it through the entire dialogue, it's unlikely you would be able to explain the idea yourself, let alone replicate the graphs the economist had produced.
But then here is Ricardo Salgado, and without any graphs or definitions it's possible for anyone to ask: "Why am I allowed to buy avocados from an American whose orchard is in Fallbrook, California but it's illegal for me to buy from Ricardo whose orchard is in Uruapan?" Moreover, while surely American avocado growers would face hardships if Ricardo were allowed to sell his avocados in the U.S., are they born with some rights that Ricardo is not?
On a closing point a lot of debate seems to have been generated over what defines right and wrong when it comes to discrimination. As Vice Squad puts it:
Would one be a bigot to discriminate in favor of one's own children versus strangers? One's neighbors? When is discrimination arbitrary, and when is it not arbitrary?
Let's say a mother decides to hire her child instead of a more qualified applicant who is of no relation to her. Is this wrong? Well the mother has a personal relationship with her son or daughter which she presumably values and gains from... so it's not strictly a business decision.
But this is taking the subject out of the context in which it was originally discussed. Let's say this same mother decides to hire the more qualified applicant instead her child. What if a politician came along and said, by law, she has no choice in the matter. She must hire her child to help strengthen the family unit. In addition, she would be threatened by fines and eventual imprisonment if she failed to comply. This is clearly wrong by my standard of values, but whoever's elected as the next President and Vice-President, to a degree, they will have this power.
To be clear, Bush has been far from perfect in this area as he imposed steel tariffs that President Clinton twice refused to put in place. Unfortunately the Kerry/Edwards ticket has ignored this flaw in the President's record, instead taking an even more protectionist stance during the campaign. It was a lost opportunity in my book, especially with Kerry's strong free-trade record.
Posted by Peter Mork at October 28, 2004 5:37 PM
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