Free Trade under Fire

Free trade is always under attack, more than ever in recent years. The imposition of numerous U.S. tariffs in 2018, and the retaliation those tariffs have drawn, has thrust trade issues to the top of the policy agenda. Critics contend that free trade brings economic pain, including plant closings and worker layoffs, and that trade agreements serve corporate interests, undercut domestic environmental regulations, and erode national sovereignty. Why are global trade and agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership so controversial? Does free trade deserve its bad reputation? This book aside the misconceptions that run rampant in the debate over trade and gives readers a clear understanding of the issues involved. In its fifth edition, the book has been updated to address the sweeping new policy developments under the Trump administration and the latest research on the impact of trade.

The Industrialists

Founded in 1895, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) helped make manufacturing the basis of the US economy and a major source of jobs in the twentieth century. This book traces the history of the advocacy group from its origins to today, examining its role in shaping modern capitalism, while also highlighting the many tensions and contradictions within the organization that sometimes hampered its mission. The book argues that NAM—an organization best known for fighting unions, promoting “free enterprise,” and defending corporate interests—was also surprisingly progressive. The book shows how it encouraged companies to adopt innovations such as safety standards, workers' compensation, and affirmative action, and worked with the US government and international organizations to promote the free exchange of goods and services across national borders. While NAM's modernizing and globalizing activities helped to make US industry the most profitable and productive in the world by midcentury, they also eventually led to deindustrialization, plant closings, and the decline of manufacturing jobs. The book is the story of a powerful organization that fought US manufacturing's political battles, created its economic infrastructure, and expanded its global markets—only to contribute to the widespread collapse of US manufacturing by the close of the twentieth century.

Reimagining the Private Firm

Escape from possessive individualism requires that the terms of engagement between households and firms be rebalanced. Rarely is the firm seen as the essential component in the economic well-being of households. And when it is seen in this light, contestation over wages and work conditions arises. The post-revolutionary regimes in China and the Soviet Union then tried to situate that obligation on the government. We know how that turned out. A better solution—economically and politically—is to bring capitalist firms into a joint obligation with the government in this essential task. The persistence of union-busting, desultory pay and fringe benefits, layoffs, plant closings, automation, and out-sourced jobs to foreign countries ought to remind politicians—and capitalists—that radical solutions are always available if hope is too long delayed. We now concentrate on the difficult realm of ideas. For here lurks the greatest barrier to necessary institutional change—defective imagination.