To its credit, the New York Times can occasionally present substantially diverse viewpoints. Today�s paper includes an excellent piece by Paul Krugman, one of the country�s leading economists, about Wal-Mart plans to reduce its wage bill by hiring more part-time workers. Part-time workers get lower pay and fewer benefits. Right next to Krugman�s column, it has a piece by columnist Tom Friedman (sorry, both Times Select and not linkable). In this column, Mr. Friedman proclaims himself a �radical free trader� and criticizes the people who oppose a new WTO treaty and the other trade agreements being pushed by the Bush administration. It�s great to hear that Mr. Friedman is a �radical free trader,� it�s too bad he has no idea what the term �free trade� means. If the United States really had free trade, the Wal-Mart Times would be able to hire all the reporters/columnists it wanted from India, Mexico, and other developing countries and pay them a small fraction of the pay that the New York Times pays its staff. If the Wal-Mart Times and other papers followed this practice (the developing world has a huge supply of potential reporters who would be every bit as good as the staff of the New York Times, and would be happy to work for half their wages), it would be able to sell its ad space and paper for a fraction of the price of the New York Times. The New York Times would soon be out business and Mr. Friedman would be looking for a new job. Mr. Friedman also relies on protection in the form of copyright protection. If there were real free trade, anyone would be able to freely copy and circulate his Times Select articles. They would also be able to freely copy and circulate his books. But, the income of Mr. Friedman, and other politically powerful individuals, is dependent on the government�s prohibition of free trade, so the government enforces copyright protection � a relic of the Medieval guild system. The fact is that Mr. Friedman is a radical protectionist; a man whose substantial income is entirely dependent on government intervention in the market. However, he is apparently not sufficiently knowledgeable about economics to realize the contradictions between the proclamations in his columns and the way in which he earns his livelihood.
--Dean Baker
