[adra]

And yet countries the world over turfed the one protection against the race to the bottom, which are tariffs. The auto industry still exists in North America because tariffs are still in place. Any time there's a significant economic imbalance of incentives, only tariffs will 'level' out the desire to offshore.

Unions may have been presented as the scapegoat and clearly they made raw profitability worse (by what margin is certainly open for debate), the large reason that blue collar wages have been deteriorating in real dollars since the 80s can largely be attributed to globalization and the elimination of tariffs. Argue about the net benefits to the world, maybe. But your loss of dollars probably wasn't the union bugaboo but globalization.

[colinmhayes]

Free trade makes the vast majority of people richer. Yes, our shitty automakers were saved, but now everyone has to pay much more for cars. And American cars are still trash compared to japanese/german ones.

[idiotsecant]

I think in a vacuum this is mostly true. Yes, if we open markets to automobiles the price of automobiles for consumers will drop. I'm not so sure it holds in the case when you consider us opening the markets for automobiles, vacuum cleaners, industrial chemicals, semiconductors, etc...

At some point you eventually reach a state where we don't actually make things anymore and the entire economy is devoted to serving those who benefit from that trade. You end up with an economy based on food service, hospitality, retail, etc. As the owners of those trade arrangements diverge further and further economically from the overwhelming majority of the population it breeds a kind of resentful desperation. When we have a healthy economy where most people can support themselves with a reasonable salary in a self-respecting dignified way without licking the boots of the upper class society is healthier. It's hard to see how we do that with free trade.