Economists fall on the left and right of the political spectrum, but often they tend to unite on conclusions that are unpalatable to the political mainstream.In “The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies,” Bryan Caplan examines differences between the way economists and non-economists view the world. He argues there are four biases that filter the thinking of economic laymen.In last week’s column, we looked at the “make-work” bias. This week, let’s look at an increasingly relevant distortion: the “anti-foreign” bias — something Caplan describes as “a tendency to underestimate the economic benefits of interaction with foreigners.”In American history, the anti-foreign bias appears most frequently during downturns. During the early years of the depression, Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley tariffs and the Buy American Act, which dramatically raised taxes on imported goods and required government construction projects to use steel made in the U.S.Many foreign countries immediately responded with similar protectionist measures and international trade fell, deepening the depression.In the midst of the current economic disaster, arguments for protectionism are again surfacing. Section 1604 of President Barack Obama’s stimulus bill says its construction projects must use “iron, steel, and manufactured goods … produced in the United States.”Several European and Asian countries have already threatened retaliatory tariffs, and history looks ready to repeat itself.The anti-foreign outlook that drives policies such as these conflict with basic economics and are morally repugnant to any consistent ethical code.Tremendous benefits come from specialization. If doctors specialize in medicine, lawyers specialize in law, and Stormy Daniels specializes in more dirty endeavors, then all will benefit when their unique skills are brought to the marketplace.Since no  one person would be able to single-handedly produce all the comforts of modern life, all stand to gain tremendously from trading with others.This is why Adam Smith — the father of modern economics — began his magnum opus by calling the division of labor the “greatest improvement in the productive power of labor.”And this benefit does not go away when one of the trading partners is in another country.The “Buy American” impulse should be attacked not only for its economic inaccuracy but also for its moral repugnancy.The border separating the U.S. from Mexico is not unlike the border between Louisiana and Mississippi or Baton Rouge and Denham Springs. These borders are nothing more than arbitrary lines in the sand.If one wants to consistently apply the principle “trade with others is bad when it crosses an arbitrary border,” then there is no reason to limit that to national borders.If you plan to discriminate against certain types of steel merely because it is produced overseas, then consistently apply this principle and only trade with people that live in the same house as you.To say U.S. companies deserve our business more than foreign companies is as arbitrary a moral judgment as the pronouncement that white people deserve our business more than black people, or protestant people, or any other distinction unrelated to the quality of the work.The next time you hear a radio ad telling you to “Buy American,” think of the 19th century signs that read “Help Wanted — Irish need not apply.”Because of the power of specialization, we all stand to gain when new people enter the marketplace. When the forces of feminism brought women into the workforce for the first time, the result was massive increases in the American standard of living.If the protectionists in Congress don’t get in the way, then globalization can continue giving us the same blessing.—-Contact Daniel Morgan at [email protected]