Oregon sales to China

Great story in this morning’s Oregonian, by Richard Read, about the increase in sales from Oregon companies to China.

The story outlined a nearly perfect example of why free trade works, why the law of comparative advantage proves that trade benefits all trading partners, raises the standard of living in each trading center.

Closing borders or raising barriers to trade is bigoted and ignorant. Sales from Intel, Mentor Graphics and Williams Controls to Asia are nearly a textbook case of how trade benefits each region. China, Viet Nam, South Korea are now rich enough to buy our products. They got that rich by selling us their products, using their cheap labor to upgrade their economies, just like the U.S. did in the last century.

Some laws of economics are like Newton’s laws of motion, and we are far better off understanding and working within their constraints than following knee jerk rhetoric which says we need to protect workers in industries that need to move elsewhere.

The left will point to jobs lost. And though some would say this is the price of progress and refer to jobs lost in the typewriter industry, we are not so callous. There is a place for government, and we need to constantly improve education, provide safety nets and attempt to mitigate tragedy. Act like good neighbors through government action.

But that is not done by attempting to withstand the movement of trade, of computer controls to China or Chinese T-shirts to Wal -Mart. The growing middle class in Asia is a very good thing, trade makes war less likely, it improves lives in China and America, and is the future.

The ascendant left needs to embrace these changes, not resort to polemic of the 1940’s or worse, that which prededed 1929.