On what grounds can we, as free trade advocates, assert that globalization can harm the country? A straightforward explanation suffices: In standard analyses of trade, economists usually assign fixed values to a country’s productive capabilities and define trade as the exchange of the goods and services, with each country supplying those items in which its productive capabilities are relatively greatest. With this definition, trade can easily be shown to offer benefits to both parties. Economic analysis repeatedly bears this out. Hence, economists emphatically reject tariffs and other forms of protectionism as impediments to those benefits. We accept this conclusion for the assumed scenario. But when productive capabilities are changing, not fixed, the world enters a whole new ball game. As long shown by many economists - the latest being Nobel Prize winner Paul Samuelson - the end result of that productivity change, even after the period of adjustment, may be better for one’s country or it may be worse, depending on circumstances.

More concretely, when the United States trades semiconductors for Asian t-shirts, for example, that is trade in the narrow sense. And we concur with the most basic theoretical conclusion that this exchange clearly benefits both countries. But when Intel properly pursues the interests of its shareholders by building a multi-billion dollar semiconductor plant in China rather than the United States, a shift in comparative productive capability suddenly occurs. Globalization is not simply free trade; it is trade plus shifting productivity. We have not sent China consumer goods, but the capability to produce more effectively.

基于什么样的推理,自由贸易支持者可以断言,全球化有损国家利益?一个简单的解释就足够了. 在贸易的标准化分析中,经济学家通过给一个国家的生产能力赋予一个固定值,而把贸易定义为商品与服务的交换,这样每个提供这些商品和服务项目的国家其生产能力都被最大化.这样的定义之下,贸易更容易就被显示为对双方都是有利的. 经济分析就是不断地证明这种互利.因此,经济学家特别强调地不驳斥关税和其它有碍这些互利实现的保护措施. 在假定条件下我们接受这个结论. 但由于生产能力是变化的, 世界进入一场全新的比赛中. 如同长久以来被许多经济学家所证实, 最近的一次证实来自诺贝尔奖金得主鲍尔. 萨缪尔森，这种生产能力最终会改变,即使是调整期过后,可以更有利于一个国家,也可能进一步恶化,这取决于当时的环境条件.

更具体一些来说,当美国用半导体与非洲T恤进行贸易交换时,这是狭义上的贸易. 我们同意最基本的理论性结论,这种交换明显对两个国家均有利.但是,当英特尔公司为正当追求自己股东的利益而在中国建立一个数十亿美金投入的半导体工厂,而不是在美国厂时,相对生产能力就突然发生改变了. 全球化不是简单的自由贸易,它是贸易+生产能力的改变. 我们没有向中国输送消费品,但拥有更有效生产消费品的能力.