Innovation and exchange can be frustratingly uninspiring, particularly given that there are concentrated, vivid costs (in the form of lost jobs and struggling communities) and benefits dispersed across millions of people who might not even notice. Is it worth shutting a textile mill in the United States and opening a “sweatshop” in southeast Asia, so Americans can save a few cents on socks?
Opponents of exchange and innovation tend not to put much weight on the dispersed benefits. Some people think it’s especially virtuous to pay extra for clothes that aren’t produced in “sweatshops” or to support local businesses. But as Henry Hazlitt reminds us, the art of economics consists not merely in looking at the effects on the most visible groups, but in tracing the effects on everyone.