David Ricardo’s economic theory of ‘comparative advantage’ is not a path to long-term prosperity

David Rothkopf : Free trade makes all nations richer, but we're not better off.

He says it ignores unpriced, but priceless, human and social goods, such as intellectual property.

He writes: In less than a decade following China 's admission to low-tariff WTO club, U.S. lost 25 percent of its manufacturing workforce, or more than 4 million relatively high-wage jobs, triggering downstream losses of non-manufacturing jobs in our former manufacturing communities.

We cannot expect, much less force, the manufacturing jobs of 2030 to look like those of 1980 .

But we as a nation can and must make a plan to manufacture much more of what we consume.

As we are learning, cheap textiles, electronics, and avocados can be very expensive.