Scott interviews David Henderson about the threat to the U.S. posed by China’s growing stature as an economic powerhouse. In general, Henderson thinks that such concerns are overblown, citing the real economic figures behind the trade relationship. In particular, he explains the way that losses from outsourcing tend to be concentrated to a few employees in a specific industry, whereas the (much larger) gains to are spread out over a whole population of consumers. This results in a skewed narrative that Americans are losing out on global trade with China. He also dispels the myth that America doesn’t produce anything anymore, explaining that we produce the same amount as ever, just with many fewer workers. Henderson and Scott go on to discuss the prospects for war between the U.S. and China, a very real and concerning threat that is mitigated, at least to some extent, by an open economic relationship between the two nations.
Discussed on the show:
- “Is China An Economic Threat?” (Hoover Institution)
- The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger
- Wal-Mart: A Progressive Success Story
- “TikTok Pot Luck | GoodFellows: Conversations from the Hoover Institution” (YouTube)
- “Testing the “China Shock”: Was Normalizing Trade with China a Mistake?” (Cato Institute)
- “War Made Easy: How Presidents & Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death (2007)” (IMDb)
- The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner
- “Special Report: Pentagon’s latest salvo against China’s growing might – Cold War bombers” (Reuters)
David R. Henderson is a Research Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and former professor of Economics at the Graduate School of Business and Public Policy at the Naval Postgraduate School. He is the author of The Joy of Freedom: An Economist’s Odyssey. Read his work at DavidRHenderson.com and AntiWar.com.
This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Listen and Think Audio; TheBumperSticker.com; and LibertyStickers.com.
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Scott Horton is director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of Antiwar.com, host of Antiwar Radio on Pacifica, 90.7 FM KPFK in Los Angeles, California and podcasts the Scott Horton Show from this website. He’s the author of the 2017 book, Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan. Visit https://scotthorton.org