Mankiw responds to Driskill

Harvard economist Greg Mankiw responds at length to Robert Driskill’s recent article for ForeignPolicy.com, "Why Do Economists Make Such Dismal Arguments About Trade?" An excerpt: I agree with Professor Driskill about one thing: Any normative statement goes beyond sheer economics and involves a degree of political philosophy. Economists’ devotion to free trade is based not ...

Harvard economist Greg Mankiw responds at length to Robert Driskill's recent article for ForeignPolicy.com, "Why Do Economists Make Such Dismal Arguments About Trade?" An excerpt:

Harvard economist Greg Mankiw responds at length to Robert Driskill’s recent article for ForeignPolicy.com, "Why Do Economists Make Such Dismal Arguments About Trade?" An excerpt:

I agree with Professor Driskill about one thing: Any normative statement goes beyond sheer economics and involves a degree of political philosophy. Economists’ devotion to free trade is based not only on the positive conclusion that it leads to a bigger economic pie but also on a couple of related philosophical positions. […]

Note that the arguments that Professor Driskill uses would also suggest that we economists should not be so hard on the Luddites. After all, there are sometimes losers from technological progress. And the original Luddites were precisely such losers. Yet I doubt that one would find many thoughtful libertarians or utilitarians (or economists of any other stripe) siding with the Luddite cause.

Read them both, and feel free to weigh in below.

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