We are living through a time when much of our supposed “common” knowledge has turned out to be wrong. Not just a little wrong; painfully, badly wrong. Maybe the Internet has just made information so much more available that we’re more aware of it. Or maybe the comfort of overly simplistic answers delivered by supposedly super-smart political and business leaders lulled us into believing they might actually be true. But simplistic answers to complicated questions … I’m skeptical.
Take trade. Jared Bernstein, a former economist for Vice President Joe Biden, recently wrote about how Democrats and Republicans alike have consistently claimed that “free trade” is wonderful for all but a relatively small group of Americans. Bernstein, however, points to new economic studies regarding the effect on low-wage workers when a high-wage country expands trade with a low-wage country. These studies found something quite different from the common claims. One of the studies found that “all non-college educated workers – about two-thirds of the workforce – were hit by the rise of trade with low-wage countries, losing 5.5 percent of their annual earnings, or about $1,800, in 2011.” In other words, our trade policies cost $150/month for two-thirds of our workforce? Maybe not so wonderful.
How about environmental regulations? Hillary Clinton got into hot water recently when she said in West Virginia, “(W)e’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business, right?” She was speaking about new job opportunities for coal workers, but the damage was done. To the folks in West Virginia she undoubtedly sounded like other callous environmentalists they’d heard gleefully applauding policies that financially devastated their hometowns.
Maybe if Clinton had at least acknowledged that some environmental policies have actually plundered local economies, those West Virginians might have been more willing to cut her some slack.
These are thorny questions. Free trade obviously lowers costs for goods and opens new markets for American companies. Similarly, environmental regulation is clearly good for climate change, wolves, water, etc.
But if we don’t acknowledge the financial harm and job losses that result from these policies, particularly in small and rural communities, how will we ever do better?
Thorny questions rarely have simple answers and we should hope that our political leaders would be willing to acknowledge that most solutions come with a cost. Because, you know what they say, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Substance matters. To me anyway. I don’t get people who have no problem being intellectually inconsistent or worse violate the old Churchill maxim, “You’re entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts.” Maybe it doesn’t matter to everybody, but it sure does to me. I believe that having a depth of knowledge that allows care deeply about the answers to questions.
Diversity also matters. Why? Because it results in better substance.
Diane Smith is the founder and CEO of American Rural.