The Seductive Gap in Trade Thinking

This chapter explores the gap between economistic thinking and what free trade agreements (FTA) actually deliver. Noting support for FTAs among economists despite this gap, Dani Rodrik asks: “It is that none of these complications matter as long as the agreement is called a ‘free trade agreement’?” To Rodrik, this reflects misunderstandings among economists. The authors, in contrast, argue the gap as not an oversight but something deeply seductive and constitutive of trade as a fetishized fantasy—what Žižek terms a “central antagonism.” Exploring this, the chapter, first, investigates different treatments in economics and political economy of the gap between FTAs and trade thinking, arguing that the gap is an unavoidable starting point for the desire embedded in trade and what we imagine trade should be. The second half provides a framework for exploring “trade fetishism.” Building on the work of Ilan Kapoor , the authors argue for the centrality of desire and anxiety in understanding the persistence and appeal of trade fetishism, leading to a repetitive cycle of disavowal, mastery, and foreclosure.