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Who Supports Free Trade - Part 2 |
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(cross posted at nirmalm.com)
Broadly, there are two dimensions of the “free trade” argument: economic and moral. The economic argument boils down to whether free trade is good for the domestic economy or not. The moral argument is, of course, about whether the effects of free trade policy are desirable from a moral standpoint.
Individual attitudes on free trade based on moral and economic arguments are further complicated by differing definitions of what “free trade” is, and perceptions of how free trade affects that individual person’s life. The survey questions unfortunately don’t fit into this framework of looking at the free trade debate, but we can keep it in mind when examining the data.
Here are the responses to each attitude question vs. the overall feeling about free trade:
- There is a strong personal element here. People who disapprove of free trade agreements overwhelmingly feel that free trade agreements have hurt them personally, and the reverse is true for people who approve of free trade agreements.
- Not surprisingly, people who think free trade agreements make the economy grow support it, and people who think free trade agreements make the economy slow oppose it.
- There isn’t much of a consensus on the impact of free trade agreements on price of domestic products.
- Regardless of approval of free trade agreements, a vast majority of respondents believed that free trade agreements are good for the people of developing countries.
- Even people who approve of free trade agreements think that they drive wages of American workers lower and lead to job losses, although to a lesser extent than those who disagree of free trade agreements. This suggests that there may be a moral component at play here (whether job losses and wage decreases are “acceptable”).
Although we get a very good sense of how an individual’s attitude about the economic impact of free trade might relate to whether free trade is desirable or not, we don’t get a good sense of the moral aspect. For example, we know whether the respondents think that free trade agreements are bad for foreign countries, or whether they think free trade agreements lead to job losses, but we don’t know if the respondents *care* about these effects from a moral standpoint. If the respondents were asked questions along the lines of “Is the U.S. government obligated to prevent potential job losses from free trade agreements?” (after the economic attitude questions), we would be able to start examining the moral aspects of this argument more closely.
Personally, I think that “free trade” is fine as long as tariffs are applied equally, and labor and environmental standards are kept consistent (to ensure that everyone is on an even footing). Unfortunately that kind of nuance is lost because of the limitations of doing a survey. Still, this does give us a starting point in terms of how people think about free trade.
Nirmal is an activist from Michigan who has worked with a variety of progressive organizations and campaigns. His writing can be found at nirmalm.com
