Robert Reich is a chameleon. He’s spent his entire career remaking himself–and yet never admitting when he was wrong and when he has changed positions.
The latest example? In today’s New York Times Book Review, he reviews a new book by Joseph Stiglitz and Andrew Charlton called “Fair Trade For All.” I haven’t read the book so I can only derive what it’s about from the title and from Reich’s review.
Off the bat, Reich makes the following statement:
Most economists and policy makers now accept Ricardo’s argument, although the popular debate over the merits of free trade continues.
Well, it may be true that most economists and policy makers of a certain kind accept Ricardo’s argument. But it’s also true that there is a significant bloc of people who think Ricardo was full of it and at the very least Ricardo’s theory of comparative advantage is completely useless and irrelevant in a world where bandwith speeds capital, work and information around the world in seconds.
But, there is a reason that Reich needs to frame the argument that way: he himself is a so-called “free trader.” In fact, he was a big proponent of NAFTA during the Clinton Administration. So, to actually give credence to a very legitimate argument–that “free trade” and Ricardo’s theory cannot exist in today’s world (an argument advances by so-called “Free trade” advocates Sen. Charles Schumer and Paul Craig Roberts in a New York Times op-ed a while back…because it’s a gorgeous day and I have to get out in the sunlight I don’t have time to find the link for you’all but, trust me, they said it!)–would undercut Reich’s own worldview.
I’ll delve into this topic down the road, but what is incredibly amusing is how Reich cannot stand up and admit that he himself played a role in creating the disaster of so-called “free trade.” Here’s a key passage of the review:
Without these other institutions in place, the authors say, trade by itself can do more harm than good. They point out that inequality increased after trade was liberalized in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and Uruguay. Ten years after the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect, Mexico’s real wages are lower than they were before, and both inequality and poverty have grown. Many of the manufacturing jobs that came to Mexico in the wake of Nafta have since been lost to China, partly because China invested heavily in education and infrastructure while Mexico, lacking tariff revenues, couldn’t afford to do so.
Earth to Bob: don’t you think it might have behooved you to point out that you played a central role in promoting NAFTA? The New York Times makes a big deal about making sure book reviewers don’t have conflicts of interest–meaning that reviewers don’t know the people who wrote the books. But, what about requiring intellectual honesty?
