I also listened to the chapter explaining absolute economic advantage and relative economic advantage. An absolute advantage would be the case where a country can build products cheaper than another country. Dr. Sowell gave an interesting example to explain a relative advantage. Hang in there while I try to explain this (the result is surprising).
In his example, he considers two products: chairs and televisions. The countries are America and Canada. America has the absolute advantage since one American can produce 500 chairs per month while one Canadian can only produce 450. Also, an American can produce 200 television sets per month while a Canadian can only produce 100 (If you're Canadian, switch the numbers if it makes you feel better).
If there are 500 hundred American workers and 500 hundred Canadian workers, we could have 300 of each make chairs while 200 make televisions. I'll spare you the math, but the result is 190,000 chairs and 90,000 televisions.
If instead, all 500 Americans make televisions and all 500 Canadians make chairs, you end up with 225,000 chairs and 100,000 televisions. This is an increase in both numbers! The reason is "that Canada has a comparative advantage making chairs. That is, Canada loses fewer television sets by shifting resources to the production of chairs than the United States would lose by such a shift." This seemed counter-intuitive to me.
Back to tariffs. History shows that countries that reduce trade barriers prosper more (gain more jobs) than countries that impose tariffs. If this is true, why do Politicians support tariffs?
The answer is comparative advantage. For a politician that wants to get reelected, the workers (from our example, American chair makers) have the comparative advantage when voting, since they will be angry about losing their job and more likely to "vote the bum out". The rest of the voters will probably be split about the decision. The problem here is that the comparative advantage for voting is BAD for the whole economy, since this influences the politician to impose tariffs to save jobs. But what if China has a comparative advantage at making tires? Wouldn't it be better to have Americans making something that they are more productive at than making tires?
Many economists believe that the protectionist policies imposed in the 1930's are what lead us into a depression. If so, why do our politicians keep making stupid financial decisions? It's simple, they follow the economics of the vote, instead of the economics of prosperity.
What does the average citizen do about it? They attend Tea Parties and Town Hall meetings, talk to neighbors, forward emails, write on blogs, etc. Hopefully this will get the attention of politicians and result in a realignment the two economies.
Vote for prosperity!
