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Tuesday, January 10, 2012

I get so tired of his dishonesty!

'Vox Day', that self-proclaimed big-brain, once again falsely and dishonestly -- and knowingly so -- equating 'open borders' with 'free trade'

7 comments:

Crude said...

The "Free trade" crowd repeatedly makes apology for illegal immigration on free trade terms. They tie it to the ability of an employer to have access to whatever employee pool is in principle available.

You can say that's incorrect, but on this one you've got the difficulty where the defenders of Free Trade have a knack for making the identification to begin with.

Ilíon said...

Libertarians -- of which VD numbers himself -- may, and generally do, make apology for 'open borders' by trying to equate that to 'free trade', but "the Free Trade crowd" does not.

The difference between VD and other libertartians in that regard is that they generally make the invalid equivalency to agitate for ‘open borders’, whereas he makes the invalid equivalency to agitate against ‘free trade’.

Free trade is no more about open borders than Smith and Ricardo and Bastiat were about Keynesianism -- another false equivalency VD frequently asserts, knowing it to be false. As I said, I am tired of his dishonesty.

Drew said...

Well, he did use quotation marks around "free trade." I don't really see what else you could ask for.

Crude said...

Libertarians -- of which VD numbers himself -- may, and generally do, make apology for 'open borders' by trying to equate that to 'free trade', but "the Free Trade crowd" does not.

Alright - who is the Free Trade crowd? Because it seems like there's a variety of groups who favor 'free trade', but they differ over what that means.

Ilíon said...

"Well, he did use quotation marks around "free trade." I don't really see what else you could ask for."

As always, as of everyone, I demand honesty.

VD: "This should be completely self-evident. And yet, the "free trade" crowd will no doubt ignore this empirical evidence, just as they have ignored the last 200 years of the logic:"

The "last 200 years" would be referring to the over-all work and the 'free trade' arguments of Smith, Ricardo, and Bastiat, would it not? You know, those arguments meant to demonstrate that though 'free trade' may indeed harm some suppliers of goods in the short-term, because it introducing new competitve pressures which they cannot bear, it benefits everyone in end, and in that same short-term benefits the far more numerous purchasers of that good.

The "this" which VD more-than-implies that "the "free trade" crowd will no doubt ignore", as he asserts they have for the past 200 years, is that an increase in the supply of labor, without a corresponding increase in the demand for it, must necessarily exert "downward-pressure" on the price labor can command. That is certainly nothing that "the free trade crowd" has ignored for the past 200 years, now is it?

Crude said...

That is certainly nothing that "the free trade crowd" has ignored for the past 200 years, now is it?

Academically ignored? I doubt it. Ignored as in downplayed, not talked about, at least in more public venues? I think that's fair. Which is why the preferred tack when free traders (or "free traders", take your pick) start discussing illegal immigration is to take a page out of the liberal book, casting it as a social justice issue - and insinuating or outright accusing opponents of racism. Because "people who are against this immigration are racist" is a little easier to sell than a reply with starts with "look, this will make some Americans poorer or out of work now, sure. But in a decade or so, from a global perspective, if our theory is right..."

Drew said...

His sentence is vague. But he doesn't appear to be saying that Bastiat and capitalists have been ignoring logic for 200 years. Rather, he seems to be saying that the "free trade" crowd are ignoring 200 years of (capitalist?) logic.

But really, I don't particularly know or care what he's saying. And don't take this the wrong way; I agree that Vox is rather pompous and sometimes annoying, and that he has some dumb views.