Critiques_Free_Trade_Animation

1. “Let me conclude on a lighter note with three animated responses to some of the recent critiques. Take the first one where you see a monkey happily jumping around from tree to tree, pursuing his genetic comparative advantage. But, alas, a jaguar turns up in one of the higher branches; and there goes the poor monkey. Such “random” occurrences do not mean that the monkey should deny his comparative advantage and instead crawl unhappily around on the ground (where also he can be bitten by a scorpion or devoured by a tiger). So, the notion that occasional occurrences where the advantages accruing from trade are nullified does not mean that, overall, advantage from trade has to be considered as ephemeral.” - Jagdish Bhagwati, World Bank Lecture June 25, 2008

2. “Take next an incontrovertible demonstration of comparative advantage. You see me standing in front of economics scribbled on the blackboard; but instead of the chalk in my hands --- the famous New York Review of Books cartoonist David Levine worked from this photograph when my book, Free Trade Today was reviewed and everyone thought that the chalk was a cigarette, making me look a little like Humphrey Bogart but more like a politically incorrect intellectual ---, my animator has put a tennis racquet in my hands, and the tennis ball bounces back and forth from my racquet. Then, Rafael Nadal appears in the upper left hand corner, and he smashes the ball and there go I up in a tumble and smoke! Evidently, I should have stuck to my comparative advantage in economics.” - Jagdish Bhagwati, World Bank Lecture June 25, 2008

3. “My final animation comes from the Garden of Eden. It occurred to me when I was writing a Preface for the French translation of Free Trade Today and I wanted to tell my French readers that, if my splendid pro-trade arguments still left them unconvinced, I had an absolutely irrefutable argument in favour of it that they could not possibly reject. [It has the flavour of the well-known story of how, at Catherine’s court, Diderot was becoming a nuisance as an atheist. So, she invited Euler, the greatest mathematician of his time, to come and refute him. So, Euler put up the argument: x2 + y2 = z2; therefore God exists. Diderot was flummoxed; he packed his bags and left for Paris.] Well, I argued: if only Adam and Eve had been trading, they would have exchanged the apple for an orange and the whole history of the human race would have been benign. So, the animation shows these ancient forbears of ours, in Christian mythology, trading the apple for the orange and living happily ever after. So, as I wrote for my French readers, trade is good for you. And I say that also to my audience today.” - Jagdish Bhagwati, World Bank Lecture June 25, 2008