May 25, 2017
Washington Post columnist Charles Lane is a devout proponent of the policy of selective protectionism. Under this policy, which is called “free trade” for marketing purposes, the wages of U.S. manufacturing workers and non-college educated workers more generally are pushed down by placing them in direct competition with low-paid workers in the developing world.
By contrast, highly paid professionals like doctors and dentists are able to achieve gains in wages by keeping in place the barriers that protect them from similar competition. In addition, drug companies, medical equipment companies, and software companies benefit from ever longer and stronger patent and copyright protection.
This selective protectionism is a key part of the upward redistribution of the last four decades. (Yes, this is the story of my book Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer [it’s free].) Anyhow, Lane is apparently upset that Donald Trump and much of the public seem to be rejecting this policy of selective protectionism so he used the 100th anniversary of John Kennedy’s birth to enlist him in the cause.
As Lane tells it, John Kennedy proclaimed:
“Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do to make the rich even richer.”
Comments