Progressive misconceptions
I was on a hike last weekend with some folks. I mentioned I hadn't had much time to do any leisure reading with business school. A crunchy dude (organic communal farmer from Mendocino) then blurted out something like "It's hard to have leisure time without slaves," which he then explicated with "first world nations live on the backs of the third world."
I was a little surprised by the intensity and suddenness of this reaction. But then I came to see where it had come from.
I didn't feel it was an appropriate juncture (a nice hike on a Sunday afternoon with people I'd just met) for a lesson in macro economics.
If you'd like the lesson in why trade leads to economic gains for both sides, even when "disadvantaged" nations trade with "powerful" or "rich" nations, go here. The article shows how countries benefit when they specialize in producing whatever they produce most efficiently (even if they produce it less efficiently than other nations), and then trade to get the things they produce less efficiently. It's a little counter intuitive at first. But it's true. Over time, supply and demand change the nature of these comparative advantages, as do capital improvements. As under developed nations gain capital from trade and re-invest it in productive infrastructure, they gain productivity advantages which may shift their cooperative advantage from raw materials to agriculture to light manufacturing to high tech manufacturing to services.
Anyway, I get that kind of hostility from "progressive" people from time to time. I'm an "evil exploiting white heterosexual male capitalist" since I'm in business school, so I must be wholly unaware of or indifferent to evil corporations paving the rainforest. It's funny how quick to judge the progressive folk can be. When you spend a lot of time vilifying a group of people with whom you have little direct contact in your daily life, and then meet "one of those people", it's hard to see them in any way other than how you've already decided they must be. Vilification of "towel headed terrorists" or "heartless capitalists" leads to the same kind of reaction. It's just ironic when I catch "progressive" folk engaging in hating and resenting people they've stereotyped and never met.
Ah, humans.
I was a little surprised by the intensity and suddenness of this reaction. But then I came to see where it had come from.
I didn't feel it was an appropriate juncture (a nice hike on a Sunday afternoon with people I'd just met) for a lesson in macro economics.
If you'd like the lesson in why trade leads to economic gains for both sides, even when "disadvantaged" nations trade with "powerful" or "rich" nations, go here. The article shows how countries benefit when they specialize in producing whatever they produce most efficiently (even if they produce it less efficiently than other nations), and then trade to get the things they produce less efficiently. It's a little counter intuitive at first. But it's true. Over time, supply and demand change the nature of these comparative advantages, as do capital improvements. As under developed nations gain capital from trade and re-invest it in productive infrastructure, they gain productivity advantages which may shift their cooperative advantage from raw materials to agriculture to light manufacturing to high tech manufacturing to services.
Anyway, I get that kind of hostility from "progressive" people from time to time. I'm an "evil exploiting white heterosexual male capitalist" since I'm in business school, so I must be wholly unaware of or indifferent to evil corporations paving the rainforest. It's funny how quick to judge the progressive folk can be. When you spend a lot of time vilifying a group of people with whom you have little direct contact in your daily life, and then meet "one of those people", it's hard to see them in any way other than how you've already decided they must be. Vilification of "towel headed terrorists" or "heartless capitalists" leads to the same kind of reaction. It's just ironic when I catch "progressive" folk engaging in hating and resenting people they've stereotyped and never met.
Ah, humans.
posted by Kenneth at 7:31 AM
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