"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary."
Or so said Adam Smith. A sentiment that's quite relevant to the debate today about whether John Kerry would be better or worse than George Bush for free trade.
Setting aside the "substantive achievement" of Doha (not yet achieved), the questions seem to be
* Which is worse for free trade -- a person who might represent the interests of [some] workers (Kerry), or who might represent the interests of [some] businesses (Bush)?
* How do we evaluate which candidate will be better in the next four year term, given their rhetoric and past actions.
On the first question, it's not clear to me that someone who will listen to the anti-trade arguments of labor is per force any worse than someone who will listen to the anti-trade arguments of specific companies.
Now, it's a truism of these things that the benefits of free trade are diffuse and the costs concentrated, so it always makes sense for the losers to coalesce and seek government support.
In the same way it's probably also true that the losses to labor are more diffuse across thousands of workers than the losses to profits, and so businesses are more likely to put real money behind lobbying for protection.
Thus, even though the candidate responsive to labor's interests might talk a good game about protection, he might not actually do more than that, unless they give up something in return.
Second, are there industries or groups in the coalition supporting a candidate or president, that have an interest in promoting free trade. Here, I suppose one could look at the relative power of financial services, IT and entertainment industries in supporting particular candidates.
Third, would a particular candidate have the political capability to go against the interests of some of their supporters for the better good of the nation. A sort of 'Nixon in China' moment in trade policy. Well, we've seen how much political capital Bush is prepared to invest in dismantling agricultural subsidies or steel tariffs ... and that when his political position was relatively strong.
On the second question, how do we evaluate which candidate would do better by free trade, there's several other considerations beyond the relative pressures of their base to act in particular ways.
First is looking at the records.
Kerry supported NAFTA, and while it's clear in hindsight that was a good idea, it wasn't necessarily popular at the time, so clearly he should be credited for that.
And in the 90s Kerry was supportive of Most Favored Nation status for China Again, a debate that seems trivial in retrospect, but at the time was relatively controversial.
Substantively, then, Kerry has a good record of supporting free trade.
Bush's actions, of course, speak mostly negatively about his desire to advance free trade. I don't think the substantive achievement that is Doha is one that can really be attributed to Bush's free trading spirit, since previous delays were at least partly attributable to the Bushies need to protect sugar farmers in Louisiana and Florida, and other economically marginal, but politically important people.
If Bush gets credit for this breakthrough now, he should get an equal debit for the previous delays, when the developing nations first put a good proposal on the table.
Of course, maybe Bush will push on trade harder in his second term when he's no longer running for re-election, but that's to assume that he won't be trying to shore up Republican senators in the farm states! Not likely.
The other way of looking at it is this; the benefits from free trade are diffuse, the arguments in favor complex, the details of the actual implementation complicated, the negotiation over the international law long and tedious.
Which candidate, Bush or Kerry, seems more likely to think through the case for free trade, and the trade-offs involved, and then have the will to stick it out tto see a deal concluded and implemented. Bush is a president whose economic policy is otherwise prefaced on the fallacy that we can cut taxes and increase spending, and never face the consequences! Not a lot of chances, I think, he'll take the hard road on trade.