It is not easy to persuade voters in either country that Iowa farmers are really growing Toyotas, while Nagoya workers are really producing soy beans. The politician looks at the short run. Look at all the jobs that these imports are destroying. Voters see unemployed workers, or read about them. They have a lot more trouble relating their increased number of affordable choices to the decrease of restraints on trade.
People frequently vote in terms of short-run issues, especially visible ones.
So, the politician has long enjoyed an advantage over the economist in persuading people to support restraints on trade. But not many people read Adam Smith these days. So, I recommend that the next time you test drive a Toyota, think about that Iowa farmer and how hard he works to make your test drive economically possible. At the time of the original publication, Gary North was president of the Institute for Christian Economics. Reprinted with permission from The Freeman, a publication of the Foundation for Economic Education, Inc., January 1993, Vol.