Economists Have Done a Great Job Making the Case Against Tariffs

Famously, economists have very different opinions from the lay public about economic policy. They are largely pro-free trade. Until fairly recently there was broad agreement among economists that the minimum wage causes unemployment. (Which probably means it’s a bad idea, but not necessarily.) They are broadly pro-free-market.

So what’s going on with the public? We have this whole tribe, this entire profession, who spends their time thinking deeply about these topics, collecting data, building formal models, and doing other kinds of research. And they come to agreement on at least a few topics. So why is this consensus so widely at variance with what the general public believes?

I sometimes hear professional economists comment on this belief gap. They say things like, “Economists have done a terrible job of making the case for free trade.” (Or whatever the topic.) I’ll insist otherwise. Economists have done a fantastic job of making the case for free trade. A single microeconomics course cured me of a lot of sloppy thinking on economic topics. It’s not like they just jot down a bunch of equations and throw in some stodgy commentary for text-filler, just to fill up a 400+ page textbook. The formulas are just there to keep your thinking disciplined. The text is there to explain the logic of free trade in plain English. I’ve seen many very elegant examples of this argument (this one about a car-crop in Iowa is probably my favorite). Some of the econ textbooks I've read are downright quotable, converting a logical, mathematical argument into beautiful prose. If someone writes a short, beautiful, easily digestible proof, it’s not their fault that the lesson fails to register on the narrow bandwidth of the public’s short attention span.

Russ Roberts has done some important work trying to communicate economics to the public. His podcast Econtalk is excellent. It covers a wide range of topics in a conversational style, but (almost) always manages to give the economist’s perspective. He’s written some books that try to viscerally communicate the lessons of economics, using fiction (The Invisible Heart, The Choice, The Price of Everything). It’s important work, and this is probably an effective way to reach people. But I want to push back against the notion that formal logic is too stodgy, or that we need to be “touchy-feely” to reach everyone.

Dry, textbook economics cured me of my leftism. I’ve seen the critiques of basic economics (mostly I’m speaking of micro/price theory), by left-wing economists and by non-economists. I think these critiques are mostly lame and totally unconvincing. Even when they land a solid critique (“Humans aren’t always and everywhere rational actors…”) these critiques fail to revive the interventionists policies supported by those critics (“…therefore, what, the government should be able to intervene in all our life decisions?”). What I’m trying to say is: textbook economics is very convincing. I’ve been there. I’ve had this play out inside my own brain. I know what it feels like to be convinced by pure logic, to discard a political orientation that was once a part of my identity because it’s not tenable. When I hear a different kind of argument, the kind that goes “Let’s discard our sense of reason because of this touchy-feely consideration over here…” I always think it’s a little bit creepy. Like someone is trying to override my sense of proportion or scale by fixating me on something emotionally compelling. Emotionally compelling examples might be necessary to "bring the lesson home" so to speak, but the underlying logic has to be there, too. Otherwise the next guy who comes along with a different compelling example will sway me back, and so on in a pointless random walk.

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There's something to be said for convincing people with bad-but-convincing arguments, but it feels totally sleazy. It always leaves me with the dueling reactions: "I didn't want it this way" and "Meh, I'll take it." Also, it tends to back-fire. The person who is convinced by a bad argument might not stay convinced for long. Also, people observing the discussion will come away with the impression that your side is disingenuous, and as Exhibit A they can point to this shining example you've just given them.