Logical root causes are not necessarily the right root causes.

Well, that's thought provoking.

Trade hurts unskilled; technology hurts unskilled. Then we bring in mass unskilled immg. for the coup de grace. https://t.co/ERRKIQLMUt

— Mickey Kaus (@kausmickey) July 26, 2016

It is glib and sounds so easily right. But is it? Instinctively, I am very supportive of global trade. Strategically and in the long run, it absolutely increases the productivity and welfare of everyone. Short term it is, of course, disruptive and does destroy jobs in one location while creating more in another location depending on relative costs and productivity.

Trade hurts many people, skilled and unskilled. Hurts in the sense that it disrupts. Some people disrupted end up better off and some worse. On balance, over time, the benefits exceeds the costs but not for every person. There are people who definitely will suffer, even in the long run. Are the unskilled disproportionately affected in a negative way by global trade? I am not sure. Trade displaces lower value-add production and forces us nationally up the value add curve.

But those jobs lost to trade are not unskilled labor. They are, however, fungible skills easily relocated. Maybe it is splitting a hair to distinguish between unskilled and lower skilled.

I suspect the heart of the matter is really technology disruption which is a much clearer disruptor of jobs.

I am guessing that the linkage is that global competition (not trade per se) drives technology displacement. Technology displacement rewards the higher skilled and harms the lower skilled (and those that are less adaptive).

We end up with a pool of lower skilled people who also might be less adaptive (older, physically less capable, less optimistic or culturally resilient, etc.) who are being asked to let go of that which is familiar and make hard and expensive adjustments. Those are the ones who suffer.

Meanwhile, the younger, richer (buffers them from the hardships of adjustment), the brighter and/or better educated, benefit by being forced up the value curve earlier in their career when there are fewer sunk costs.

This dynamic would seem to explain in part the hollowing out of the middle class.

Even Kaus's observation about immigration seems subject to refinement. It is not that they are unskilled that is the distinguishing factor. It is that they are young. Disruption occurs and the young are more likely to adapt easier than the older.

I suspect that Kaus has captured correctly the popular formulation of the chain of causation. Hence the support of Bernie and Trump over the establishment candidates. The establishment protects itself and not citizens. The elite do not bear the real, direct cost of global competition, technology change and immigration.

The fact that the formulation is not quite right doesn't change people's conviction that it is right. It clearly sounds right.

The problem is that we need to know the real causation in order to understand what can really be done.

Even if we were to erect massive tariffs to restrict trade, that doesn't address the still existent competition. If everyone outside the country is reducing costs and becoming more efficient, then tariffs only delay the adjustment, not the fact that we will have to adjust.

Similarly, can technology development really be slowed, even if we wanted to? Again, likely that this is simply a systemic force that has to be accommodated and adjusted to.

That leaves immigration as the only lever likely to be subject to adjustment. Of course, even here, the latitude is probably a lot less than we would wish. Certainly we can do a lot better at reducing legal immigration (if we wanted to) and even illegal immigration. It is a matter of consistent and diligent enforcement. But as long as the immigration flow is demographically unbalanced (younger) then there will still be a disproportionate harm to the older, poorer and less adaptable.

I don't have an answer other than to use the regulatory processes to slow things down a little without actually opposing the adjustments.

I think that means that the issue is to change focus away from trade and technology as causal factors. Yes, immigration remains a focus for more effective management. Perhaps the focus most needs to be on helping citizens to adjust behaviors and values, make it easier and cheaper to acquire new skills, and think more creatively about how work can be designed to mitigate the impact of aging.