EXCERPTS:
"Don [Boudreaux] argues in the book and in the podcast that to point to an American steel worker put out of work by imports of Brazilian steel and say that he is "harmed by trade" is to misunderstand the nature of trade and its winners and losers. He says it’s like saying that a man whose wife leaves him for another man is harmed by love. After all, the man married because of love. The man is the product of his parents who were touched by love. So it is with the steel worker. His steel job exists because of trade. His whole life is supported by trade of various kinds. So in what sense is he "harmed by trade?"
It’s a profound point. It forces you to see just how trade and specialization and the division of labor create the incredible lives we lead, lives of wealth and health unimagined by previous generations.
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"Ironically, the richer we become, the more specialization we have. The more specialized you are, the greater the risks (and rewards) from economic change.
The lesson, I think, is that education should give you a range of places to apply your specialized skills. It’s better to learn how to program than to learn how to program in HTML. It’s better to know how to write than to know how to write an article for a traditional newspaper. It’s better to know how to communicate generally than to know how to write.
It is better to learn how to learn than just to learn something specific."
