A story of tariffs, work, family, and the good life

» A story of tariffs, work, family, and the good life

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They know with more certainty than anything else that free trade enriches both countries.

President Donald Trump’s global tariffs, ranging from 10% to 50%, reeked of amateurism. The White House called them “reciprocal tariffs,” but they were nothing of the sort. The formula used to derive them was erroneous, two economists charged. Trump taxed penguins for their exports. And the tariffs were announced under the absurd banner of “Liberation Day.”

All of that is before the economic illiteracy of the project. Tariffs interfere with American buyers’ ability to buy the goods they want, and so they decrease the efficiency of the American economy. Free global markets allocate different tasks, including manufacturing, to the player with the comparative advantage and thus maximize global productivity.

This dream, that by pulling out of the wide-open global marketplace, we can restore old factory jobs is a fantasy. And anyway, who wants their son to work in a factory?

But the economic argument reaches too far, stretching beyond its competency. Experts always do this. Consider how the epidemiologists overreached during the pandemic, believing they could not only tell us about reducing infections, but could weigh the risks of infection against the value of family, community, and connection.

Economists can tell us how trade policies correlate with GDP. They cannot tell us which trade policies will make the good life more attainable.

And it’s on this larger, more important question that the skeptics and opponents of free trade have a more interesting story to tell. It’s a story, not a formula or a law of economics. Stories are often dismissed by those with doctorate degrees, but stories are what motivate most human action.

If the economists are baffled as to why their countrymen would reject free trade, they need to better understand the story being told about a better life in a smaller, less global marketplace.

Economic value and family values

The case against free trade is in large part a nostalgia story. Nostalgia, in this age of arrogance, narcissism, and short memories is often a virtue. But nostalgia almost always errs by painting too rosy a picture of the past.

A false notion permeates social media that our grandfathers were much wealthier than we are. They could afford a house, a family car, and a nice vacation all on one salary, the line goes.

The economists, though, point out that not only is the U.S. much wealthier than it was in 1955 or 1965, but that the average family is much wealthier.

That home that our grandfathers bought on the GI Bill was drafty, had no central air conditioning, was 900 square feet, and had no dishwasher. That family car broke down constantly and guzzled gas. Air travel was out of reach, and medical care was far worse.

When some online posters pine for this past from their laptops, while sipping espresso, either from their home coffee maker or from one of a million neighborhood coffee shops, you have to wonder if they understand the downsides that were part of this past.

This anti-nostalgia response, though, has a few unstated premises — some that could be challenged. Most importantly, many of the elements in this trade-off have subjective value, and it’s not obvious that the modern comforts are better than the older upsides. That is, there are subjective value judgments involved here.

In 1967, half of all mothers stayed at home, which means about half of all married men were able to support a family. Also, more than 85% of men in their 30s were married, along with 77% of men in their late 20s. The total fertility rate, a standard measure of the birth rate, was 3.65 children per woman.

Today, about half of all men in their 30s are unmarried, together with a vast majority of men in their late 20s. The birthrate is 1.6, a full child below Americans’ ideal family size of 2.7.

This is partly a story of changing values. It’s partly a story of women’s greater equality. It’s also a story, though, of young men, especially noncollege young men, finding it harder to get a reliable job with decent pay and the ability to own a home.

Zoom out, and look at the trade-off this way: Would you rather have walk-in closets, lattes, central air, and affordable flights to Austin, Texas, or would you rather have a wife and kids and a small backyard?

One easy response is that, obviously, modern man has chosen the former. But it’s hard to paint the retreat from marriage and the baby bust as simply a matter of revealed preferences when you realize that marriage rates are lower among the working class, suggesting that the collapse of family formation is due to hardship rather than liberation. Also, the decline of family formation goes together with the increase in deaths of despair: Less marriage means more drug and alcohol abuse and worse physical health in general.

If the era of free trade is an era of greater material wealth but less connection, less family, and less community, the trade here isn’t obviously an upgrade.

Factory man

The nostalgic argument, however, ignores how much of an upgrade we have enjoyed in the work we do.

It’s easy to imagine that we all traded in cowboy jobs or stable careers as mechanics for gig work or cubicle jobs, but that’s a false story. Factory jobs that existed before the North American Free Trade Agreement and Chinese entry into the World Trade Organization were not skilled trades. Most of the work was mindless and repetitive. The factories were not beautiful places to work.

Also, many manual labor jobs were literally backbreaking. Men were retiring in their 50s, not always to enjoy golf and wrestling with grandkids, but often because their bodies were so broken down that they couldn’t work anymore.

But once again, the pro-free trade argument can overreach here.

Do I aspire for my son to operate a blast furnace making manhole covers 40 hours a week for 30 years? No. But also, my aspirations for my son are not primarily about his career.

I believe work can be an important source of meaning and satisfaction. Personally, I get to write about the most important things, and I enjoy it. But I know this is a rare privilege. I also know that one pathology of younger people is an idealism regarding work: A demand that their job’s output itself be deeply meaningful.

“Workism” is the word Atlantic writer Derek Thompson has given this mindset. Many of my fellow commentators are workist, and so their commentary puts too little value on the factory jobs of old. No, screwing evaporator brackets onto the back of a kitchen fridge again and again might not have been terribly rewarding, but providing for a family was. If family and community are more important to you than work, then Grandpa’s factory job sounds like a pretty good deal.

I’d be happy with the blast furnace job if it meant my son was a breadwinner and a Little League coach.

Stability vs. dynamism

One of the first lessons in finance is that there’s a trade-off between risk and reward. In most aspects of life, opting for stability and predictability means curbing your potential gains.

The old union factory jobs provided stability, but they created less national prosperity than our current economy does. But if you hold family and community in very high esteem, you are likely to value stability over progress.

The free trade route has valued dynamism and growth over stability and predictability. Parallel to our cultural liberalism, we have chosen opportunity over reliability.

The desire to return to reliability, stability, and family is valid. Blaming free trade is not off base.

But this story against free trade also exposes the glaring, fundamental flaw in Trump’s trade plans.

Trump’s tariff approach will never restore anything of value because it does not offer any predictability or reliability. Tariffs implemented by executive fiat — and tariffs that are arbitrary, ever-shifting, sometimes pausing, maybe returning — cannot cultivate a domestic manufacturing industry.

Nobody will build a sneaker factory in Terre Haute, Indiana, when Chinese sneakers could come flooding back tomorrow if President Xi Jinping promises Trump he’ll buy some soy, or if Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) or former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley becomes president in four years.

The temporary, flexible nature of these tariffs isn’t some unfortunate accident — it’s by design. The art of the deal requires flexibility. And this gets at Trump’s personality.

Trump likes to talk about the good old days. That’s implicit in the words “Make America Great Again.” But if there was ever any hope of making America great again in the specific way envisioned by the pro-family protectionist, it would require giving up dynamism and flexibility for predictability and stability. That goes against Trump’s very nature.

Trump doesn’t stand for the relational or the permanent — as evidenced by his divorces and his discarding of all his former aides, appointees, attorneys, and running mates. He stands for the transactional and the temporary.

FEDERAL COURTS SHOULD BLOCK TRUMP’S ILLEGAL TARIFF REGIME

The economists may not be able to rule on the relative value of central air, a rewarding job, and one’s marriage prospects, but we don’t need them to, because there is no policy on the table that would bring back the economic conditions of old.

But they do need to listen to the story that is denominated in deeper values than GDP, and the story in favor of free trade, or against Trump’s trade war needs to be told on terms that resonate with the human heart.





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