Video link: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/61994337/111benedict.asf
“It’s a shame that American politicians want to complain about uniforms made in China. American athletes are gonna do great, and they’re gonna look great in those uniforms made by Ralph Lauren in China. America politicians . . . want to demonize China. Free trade is something that benefits the entire world whether you’re rich or poor. We have a comparative advantage to make things other than clothing.” – Wes Benedict
wolfefan @17 – Thank you for your kind words. And excellent point about how the win/lose mentality is also wrapped up in the nationalist packaging.
Mary Ruwart’s book “Healing Our World” ( http://www.ruwart.com ) — which I highly recommend as one of the best if not the best book-length introductions to libertarianism out there — also emphasizes win/win solutions.
In a related vein, I think the use of the word “loser” as a put-down should also be avoided, as should the use of the word “winner” as a compliment or term of approval.
That use of language encourages people to value winning and devalue losing, when what we ought to be encouraging is doing the right thing regardless of whether one “wins” or “loses”.
Starchild @16 – I appreciate your sensitivity to this. Much of the culture has borrowed the language and approach of sports, which in addition to encouraging nationalism leads to a win/lose mentality instead of seeking win/win.
As is common in such discussions, I note several respondents in this thread using personal pronouns such as “we”, “us”, and “our” to refer to the United States, to the U.S. Olympic team, etc.
Seeing nation-states, national governments, and so on as extensions of ourselves is a form of collectivism that reinforces the power of national governments.
To the extent governments can get us to see them as us — still with me? — their abuses become morally justifiable in libertarian terms, since their abuses are (according to this view) not anything that anyone else is doing to us, but merely something we choose to do to ourselves.
So I encourage libertarians to consciously try to avoid allowing nationalism to creep into our thinking, writing, and speech via “we”, “us” and “our”.
I know it’s not easy, because the culture is full of it — I still catch myself inadvertently using these words in ways that imply a nationalist frame of reference from time to time — but it’s a worthwhile effort to make.
I agree AH – but with some populism thrown in.
More constitutionalist.
At least Jim Duensing is done pretending he’s a libertarian! 🙂
The more we trade with China, the more upward pressure we put on living conditions in both China and the US, and thus the likelihood of slaves in both nations being freed sooner increases.
BR@10 absolutely nails it. Using problems created by past government intervention to justify more government intervention is the kind of sloppy logic I would expect to see on FOX News or MSNBC, but not on IPR, and certainly not from people who are (ostensibly) libertarian.
@7 The closer we can get to free markets and free trade, the better things will be for the American and the Chinese people.
If the Olympic committee determined that they could get the uniforms they wanted at the best price from China – or wherever – then they should have purchased them. Hopefully they optimized this decision for themselves, the best they could, with the informaton available to them.
The world is a messy place. Governments have policies that muddy market signals making optimization difficult. We don’t have pure free trade or pure free markets. Monetary manipulation by the US Federal Reserve and the Treasury, by the Chinese government, and other non-free market players cause distortions, along with a myriad of trade restrictions, subsidies, taxes … No individual has the ability and no computer program exists today to second guess what the conditions would be, who the producers would be and what the prices would be in the absence of such a convoluted, twisted, distorted, perverted policy environment.
Yet, we must make the best choices we can as if the market were free, for to try to guess at a different choice in the absence of free markets would be to introduce another layer of regulatory noise into the free flow of market information. There is no basis to assert that some arbitrary decision by some regulatory fiat or bias would have resulted in a “better” economic outcome for Americans or the Chinese. It would be merely political.
To contend that we should regulate choices such as these because we can see that there are imperfections in the market and the outcome might have been different then justifies any and all regulation in the world today since markets everywhere are messy and less than free.
Political decision making is the biggest problem for the would-be free citizens of America and China. Free markets, free trade, and choices freely chosen will make us better off. Knowing this, choices made by individuals that move in the direction of being freely made – even in a messy and less than perfect world – should be endorsed, as such support adds pressure for all to move in the direction of Liberty.
Uniforms for our athletes, just like every other product, should be purchased from whoever can provide them at the lowest cost. The USA Olympic Committee (or whatever the organization is called), just like every other entity, should spend its money in the most efficient way possible.
When has protectionism freed a slave in any country in all he history of the world?
@ Be Rational – in such a complex situation how is it not better for Americans to have jobs producing clothing to represent America in the Olympics? How are Americans better off with this arrangement? Could not Americans have custom tailored the uniforms for our athletes?
In Liberty, with Eternal Vigilance,
Jim
US has slave labor, too.
Protectionism does nothing to free slaves.
China is a dilema. There is some slave labor, but there are also individuals working to support themselves, their families and survive despite the actions of an oppressive government. Many Americans could say the same about their own situations
Sometimes in this messy world things are not so simple.
Libertarians: Supporting Communist slave labor since 1972.
During this New Depression, this is a stupid position for the LP to take. China is not a free market competitor because it uses slave labor. America used to lead the world in textile manufacturing. From Nixon on down, the American policy of appeasement with China has backfired. They have all the manufacturing capabilities we used to have. And we have all of the human rights their people are afforded.
A question for Wes, what manufacturing sectors does America’s comparative advantage cause us to be leading in?
In Liberty, with Eternal Vigilance,
Jim
Well, one thing is sure… you can’t watch the Olympics on a TV made in the USA!
Could this please be the one time we spend a few extra dollars to have something made in the US?
I just see having the US Olympic uniforms made in China as a bad joke.