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billyblog
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1 year ago
in Krugman on Trade and Inequality on Will Wilkinson
Through Paul Krugman's blog post for today
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/con...
I eventually linked to your comments on his Trade and Inequality, revisited piece at:
http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/261
I was intrigued by your tack of implying that Krugman's tilt towards giving fair trade arguments a bit more respect than has been the case – even by Paul Krugman in the past -- exposes his flank with respect to some sort of ideal notion of social justice.
I understand your argument in the abstract, which is to say in the context of a theory of morality in general and social justice in particular which is highly individualistic. The flaw in your reasoning, at least from a philosophical if not a strictly economic point of view, is to imply a standard for social justice – and more generally morality überhaupt -- which need not be constructively mediated through socially (and historically) constituted political/communal structures, whether these structures be families, tribes, or, most importantly for your particular argument, nation states.
The effect of this highly individualistic notion of morality is that you uncritically cherry pick individually focused forms of social justice/morality and shrug off other more socially embedded notions and outcomes.
One of your commenters, play_jurist, gets at this by noting that state sponsored policies in China of turning a blind eye towards (global) environmental considerations and denying Chinese labor Western-style bargaining rights dilutes to a considerable degree the force of the view that a simple narrowing in the wage gap between some workers in the developed world and other workers in the developing world (China, for example) is a sufficient basis to claim that this represents a net net advance in terms of social justice.
Your response to play_jurist is somewhat flip and, indeed, borders on the intellectually embarrassing. Let me take it one thought at a time:
"(1) Sure. US environmental preferences cost the US jobs. Is that really an argument for imposing our environmental preferences on others?"
You seem try to avoid joining the debate over (global) environmental degradation by using the loaded term "imposing." Am I wrong to detect an unargued for assumption that, whatever else morality might mean, it means not imposing your moral views on someone else because morality is an intensely individual thing and not a social matter? Why this sort of view of morality does not even qualify for classical liberalism's view of morality where individual morality does have the minimal social obligation of doing no harm to others.
So surely you jest if you are suggesting that there is no moral – forget political and economic -- asymmetry in terms of social justice, understood in a global context, between lax Chinese pollution standards and tighter American ones? Or have I somehow misunderstood what your riposte to play_jurist implied from the standpoint of your chosen cudgel, social justice?
"(2) The international baseline for labor rights should be that workers can, if they like, bargain collectively, and, if they like, negotiate their own labor contracts. Also all workers should have right to exit to other labor markets."
The naivete is in the frictionless "shoulds" and "if they likes." The problem with some versions of free trade is that these "shoulds" and "if they likes" happen not to be anywhere close to being operative. And it is hopelessly muddled to mount even a supposedly moral argument based on somehow turning a blind eye to this reality.
"People who are worried about the labor conditions of workers in other countries ought to be in favor of letting them move to countries with better conditions."
Leave aside once more the frictionless "ought." It is quite possible to argue that the U.S. – and other developed countries -- need not one fine day cease having regulated immigration policies, while still coming out considerably to the left of Lou Dobbs with respects to the economic, political, AND social justice aspects of immigration policy. Nor need they under these circumstances feel particularly vulnerable to the charge that they hold the equally naïve view that the modern liberal nation state stands at the end of history as the source of all (moral) goodness.
I think you know this, and that is why it appears a bit sophomoric to throw out a suggestion about the (ideal) free movement of labor which ignores this reality.
Otherwise, I very much enjoyed your piece.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/con...
I eventually linked to your comments on his Trade and Inequality, revisited piece at:
http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/261
I was intrigued by your tack of implying that Krugman's tilt towards giving fair trade arguments a bit more respect than has been the case – even by Paul Krugman in the past -- exposes his flank with respect to some sort of ideal notion of social justice.
I understand your argument in the abstract, which is to say in the context of a theory of morality in general and social justice in particular which is highly individualistic. The flaw in your reasoning, at least from a philosophical if not a strictly economic point of view, is to imply a standard for social justice – and more generally morality überhaupt -- which need not be constructively mediated through socially (and historically) constituted political/communal structures, whether these structures be families, tribes, or, most importantly for your particular argument, nation states.
The effect of this highly individualistic notion of morality is that you uncritically cherry pick individually focused forms of social justice/morality and shrug off other more socially embedded notions and outcomes.
One of your commenters, play_jurist, gets at this by noting that state sponsored policies in China of turning a blind eye towards (global) environmental considerations and denying Chinese labor Western-style bargaining rights dilutes to a considerable degree the force of the view that a simple narrowing in the wage gap between some workers in the developed world and other workers in the developing world (China, for example) is a sufficient basis to claim that this represents a net net advance in terms of social justice.
Your response to play_jurist is somewhat flip and, indeed, borders on the intellectually embarrassing. Let me take it one thought at a time:
"(1) Sure. US environmental preferences cost the US jobs. Is that really an argument for imposing our environmental preferences on others?"
You seem try to avoid joining the debate over (global) environmental degradation by using the loaded term "imposing." Am I wrong to detect an unargued for assumption that, whatever else morality might mean, it means not imposing your moral views on someone else because morality is an intensely individual thing and not a social matter? Why this sort of view of morality does not even qualify for classical liberalism's view of morality where individual morality does have the minimal social obligation of doing no harm to others.
So surely you jest if you are suggesting that there is no moral – forget political and economic -- asymmetry in terms of social justice, understood in a global context, between lax Chinese pollution standards and tighter American ones? Or have I somehow misunderstood what your riposte to play_jurist implied from the standpoint of your chosen cudgel, social justice?
"(2) The international baseline for labor rights should be that workers can, if they like, bargain collectively, and, if they like, negotiate their own labor contracts. Also all workers should have right to exit to other labor markets."
The naivete is in the frictionless "shoulds" and "if they likes." The problem with some versions of free trade is that these "shoulds" and "if they likes" happen not to be anywhere close to being operative. And it is hopelessly muddled to mount even a supposedly moral argument based on somehow turning a blind eye to this reality.
"People who are worried about the labor conditions of workers in other countries ought to be in favor of letting them move to countries with better conditions."
Leave aside once more the frictionless "ought." It is quite possible to argue that the U.S. – and other developed countries -- need not one fine day cease having regulated immigration policies, while still coming out considerably to the left of Lou Dobbs with respects to the economic, political, AND social justice aspects of immigration policy. Nor need they under these circumstances feel particularly vulnerable to the charge that they hold the equally naïve view that the modern liberal nation state stands at the end of history as the source of all (moral) goodness.
I think you know this, and that is why it appears a bit sophomoric to throw out a suggestion about the (ideal) free movement of labor which ignores this reality.
Otherwise, I very much enjoyed your piece.
