Domestic Content Laws debate

Professor Jackson ended class on Tuesday by declaring that, at least in the parallel universe where I’m a high-rolling lobbyist with a Rosslyn penthouse (check out the master bedroom with separate His and Her bathrooms!) and the president is a thirty-something college professor, domestic content rules for American automobiles would be repealed. But the venerable professor also noted that the question was resolved by political dynamics, not by the content of the arguments, and asked us to consider who would have won the debate if it content were the sole criterion for victory. I think its difficult to do that, precisely because the arguments never really got to the point of exhaustion: the key differences in perspective that underrun the debate were never systematically exposed and critiqued. I left class feeling like I still had something meaningful to say, and I’m tempted to continue arguing and assuming the primacy of my value framework (the subjective framework that constructivists view as inevitable) rather than objectively analyzing the arguments.

Nonetheless, I thought the United Autoworkers made the best individual argument of any interest group. Their case was well-articulated and consistently rooted in empirical evidence. More so than any other constituency, the UAW addressed a variety of possible decision-making perspectives (realism, liberalism, constructivism) and argued the strength of a certain policy from each of the three perspectives, although in terms of maintaining the realism of the simulation it would have been better to do so without explicitly arguing that “from a liberal perspetive…” The UAW also effectively engaged in an uphill battle, in that everyone in the class is really a member of the consumer constituency and is predisposed to arguments addressed towards consumers rather than workers.

When the arguments of the constituencies were pooled into pro-tariff and anti-tariff categories, I think the anti-tariff case won despite the pluralistic victory of the anti-tariff UAW. First, there were simply more groups on the anti-tariff side, and more opportunities to present narrow individual arguments that collectively address a broad variety of theoretical perspectives. Second, the AMA, the AIAM, and the consumers all incorporated a more sophisticated body of academic theory into their argument; in economics – although not in sociology – the case against trade barriers is far more prominent and probably better developed. But the case wasn’t predetermined in favor of free trade; it was won and lost following the presentations in the questions, caucuses, and rebuttals.

The consumers and the manufacturers all utilized the post-presentation period to question and undermine the link between other groups’ practical ends and the policies they supported, while neither the unions nor the environmentalists did so. The United Autoworkers attempted to do so, but they misappropriated facts in their arguments: although eliminating content laws might (as they argued) increase the profit margins of foreign manufacturers, they didn’t argue that it would decrease the sales or profits of domestic automakers. I felt the consumers and the foreign manufacturers presented a better case advocating free trade on environmental grounds than the Sierra Club did opposing free trade (although my understanding is that the simulation Sierra Club followed the positions of the real Sierra Club; this is a critique more of the occasional myopia and inflexibility of the environmentalist movement than of the skills of my classmates).

Of course, my analysis is inevitably colored by my own participation as a member of the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers. It’s easy to say that we can argue for one side of a debate without compromising our actual beliefs, but the truth is more complicated: there’s an interesting psychological phenomenon called cognitive dissonance, which basically means that when people are asked to work with a perspective irreconcilable with their own views, they tend to subtly shift their views to match their actions. I waffle a bit on free trade and globalization in general: I think its beneficial, but only when contingent upon strong labor and environmental standards that prevent a “race to the bottom.” But I walked out of class with a firm, if not passionate, belief that I was right.