Trade Wars, Class Wars & Globalization: Unpacking The Truth About Trade (featuring David Autor & Marc Palen)

Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer

Civic Ventures

Business, Government, News, Politics

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 16 September 2025

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this kickoff to our special series on trade, Nick and Goldy unpack why trade policy isn’t just about tariffs and treaties—it’s about people, power, and priorities. For decades, the prevailing narrative has been that trade benefits everyone by lowering prices. But the real question is: who does it help, and who does it hurt? From the false promises of globalization to the overlooked damage in hollowed-out communities, this episode sets the stage for exploring a fresh way to think about trade—one grounded in power dynamics, democratic values, and middle-out economics. David Autor is a labor economist and professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies how technological change and globalization affect workers. He is also co-director of the MIT Shaping the Future of Work Initiative and the National Bureau of Economic Research Labor Studies Program. Marc-William Palen is a historian and senior lecturer at the University of Exeter, specializing in the history of international relations, U.S. foreign policy, and political economy. He is the author of Pax Economica: Left-Wing Visions of a Free Trade World. Social Media: @davidautor.bsky.social @davidautor @mwpalen.bsky.social @MWPalen Further reading: Places versus People: The Ins and Outs of Labor Market Adjustment to Globalization Pax Economica: Left-Wing Visions of a Free Trade World Recovering the Left-Wing Free Trade Tradition Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Threads: pitchforkeconomics Bluesky: @pitchforkeconomics.bsky.social Twitter: @PitchforkEcon, @NickHanauer, @civicaction YouTube: @pitchforkeconomics LinkedIn: Pitchfork Economics Substack: ⁠The Pitch⁠

Transcript

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0:00.0	The rising inequality and growing political instability that we see today are the direct result of decades of bad economic theory.
0:10.9	The last five decades of trickle-down economics haven't worked. But what's the alternative?
0:16.3	Middle-out economics is the answer. Because the middle class is the source of growth, not its consequence.
0:23.1	That's right.
0:28.7	This is pitchfork economics with Nick Hanauer, a podcast about how to build the economy from the middle out.
0:36.9	Welcome to the show.
0:41.6	We've made a lot of heretical assertions about economics over the years, Nick.
0:48.9	And today, I just want to start this conversation by making the most heretical assertion of all.
0:56.3	And I'm embarrassed and ashamed to say this.
1:00.8	But I have to say that there's one thing good that has come out of the Trump administration.
1:06.6	And that is that he has forced a conversation on trade.
1:11.6	For better or worse, his policies are nuts, completely insane.
1:15.5	But they are at least as his take is at least as heretical as ours.
1:22.6	And it's forced people to rethink and reexamine what has been the consensus for just the past 40 years,
1:31.8	but really the consensus for the past 150 years in economics on trade.
1:37.7	And that is what we're going to be talking about over the next few episodes.
1:45.0	And it's really fitting because as much as neither one of us are economists,
1:52.0	we're not natural experts in this field.
1:55.0	Unic have actual business experience in the field of international trade. Yeah, that's true. One of the things
2:03.4	it's, you know, before we jump in, it's one of the things that's, I think, interesting and
2:07.2	relevant is the definition, right? Because humans have been trading for as long as there have
2:11.8	been humans. It's what we do. We truck and barter, I think it's the economic term.
	...

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