http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2003_archives/003004.html The New Republic's talented Noam Scheiber bangs his head against the wall, killing millions of brain cells, as he contemplates an anti-free trade op-ed by Chuck Schumer and by Paul Craig ("slaves were happy! really! really happy!") Roberts: &c: ...the fact that we could one day find ourselves in a situation where our comparative advantage lies in a low-value good like T-shirts rather than a high-value good like software isn't exactly comforting. Still, as long as we enjoy a comparative advantage in enough high-value goods--which will be the case as long as our workforce remains incredibly well-educated and high-skilled relative to India's and China's, which should be our top policy priority and which, even if it wasn't, is going to be the case for decades (when was the last time you checked the literacy rate of India?)--then all the doom and gloom you hear from people like Schumer and Roberts is way overstated. There are real globalization-related issues we need to address--most importantly, the dislocation caused when whole industries cease to be efficient, and the speed with which we allow that to happen. But the theoretical foundation of the case for free trade isn't one of them... en-us http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/000355.html Charles Schumer and Paul Craig Roberts rewrite Ricardian trade theory. Comparative advantage is undermined if the factors of production can