> He instead says that the US has more auto jobs because of the cross-border integration than otherwise. The decline of the US auto industry began very soon after the start of the auto pact.

His topic is NA as a large single economy, and on that basis auto production (in both employment and GDP) has grown and productivity has grown since NAFTA was signed (and has gyrated wildly as well due to idiotic auto industry management, which is unrelated to NAFTA).

The jobs had indeed moved around to the detriment of regions in the US, Canada and to a lesser extent Mexico. But if you look at the US alone, you see that process happening as well (e.g. aircraft and auto mfg moving to the non-unionized south). It’s economically superior to integrate these three countries and beneficial overall: but the US has been the laggard in helping those regions who have suffered.

NAFTA is also a condemning example for the EU: a free trade region based on propinquity where different languages and systems are used yet the free trade works.

▲

TMWNN 8 hours ago | parent [-]

> But if you look at the US alone, you see that process happening as well (e.g. aircraft and auto mfg moving to the non-unionized south).

A Michigan auto worker may not be thrilled by jobs moving to Tennessee, but a) at least his countrymen will work those jobs, and b) he can move to Tennessee. His job moving to Ontario does not have these virtues, and no amount of repeating

> It’s economically superior to integrate these three countries and beneficial overall

is going to change this.

▲

gumby 7 hours ago | parent [-]

I think 0 people will say “I may be suffering but at least my countryman is doing fine.”

But I think you’re accidentally arguing a position it doesn’t sound like you support. Macroeconomics has moved into an abstract region where “homo economicus” is their spherical cow, and actual human behaviour is left by the wayside. Straight up utilitarianism is used to calculate benefit. From your comments I believe you consider that bad — and I do too.

But you ignored the part of my comment that addressed that when you wrote:

> His job moving to Ontario does not have these virtues, and no amount of repeating

> > It’s economically superior to integrate these three countries and beneficial overall

> is going to change this.

My wife is taking some medicine that makes her throw up so she takes another one to counteract that. I said that the US chronically fails to attempt the equivalent, instead assuming that humans are fungible equivalents and that the magic hand of the market would take care of things.

Even where attempts are made to ameliorate economic impact they usually involve trying to tech 50 yo coal miners to code. The actual human nature of humans is ignored.

Whet I didn’t like about your comment is that you deny the global (national in this case) benefit — also received by most of the dislocated — for the short term benefit of the few. That’s is just as abstract, and is like arguing that the automobile should have been suppressed because of all the people whose job was to drive horses.

The right hung to do is to address the disadvantaged, as humans. But that attitude (in more than just macroeconomics policy) is considered anti-American and “socialist”

	▲	TMWNN 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> I think 0 people will say “I may be suffering but at least my countryman is doing fine.” Again, that Michigan autoworker can move to Tennessee, or wherever else jobs relocate to. Millions of Americans (including, but not just, autoworkers) do. And even if the autoworker does not move, at least he will benefit from the taxes his countrymen who do take those jobs pay. Ontario (or Mexico) is a different story. >Whet I didn’t like about your comment is that you deny the global (national in this case) benefit — also received by most of the dislocated — for the short term benefit of the few. I believe that free trade, between countries of comparable development, is overall a net benefit. That is not the same thing as saying that tariffs, even between such countries, are not at times an appropriate tool for geopolitical, economic, and fiscal purposes.