A critical rap
against the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership is that it will destroy jobs,
which is the argument labor unions always use to oppose free-trade agreements
like this one. Nonsense. What destroys jobs is innovation and productivity.
When allowed to do so, people always look to find new and better ways of doing
things–or to come up with new things altogether. Who had heard of an iPad or
the process we call streaming just a few years ago? In the constant turbulence
of free markets some jobs are eliminated, but the overall number and quality of
jobs improve.
People today wax
nostalgic over manufacturing, just as they did over farming before that. In reality,
both, until recent decades, involved backbreaking manual labor. Remember the
criticism that factory work was soulless and repetitive? Factory assembly lines
are largely a thing of the past in this country.
It’s human nature to
look for and lash out at targets when our lives are disrupted by economic
change. But when barriers to progress aren’t put in the way, most people
quickly land on their feet.
The problem today is
our own government, which has hobbled us with a horrific tax code, a
destructive monetary policy and a tsunami of opaque rules regarding health care
and everything else and prevents us from focusing our energies on productive
activities that would benefit us all.
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