Can you point to some reference that supports your assertion that economists regularly recognize that free trade benefits only a few?
I said that economists regularly recognize that free trade
can benefit only a few. To restate in a more words: In some cases free trade can result in benefiting only the few, while in other cases it can result in benefiting the majority.
You asked for a link, and I will give you one. However, I have a degree in business, and the school I attended specialized in economics. We had excellent economics instruction, and I excelled in economics. What I have stated above is one of the many aspects we were taught about free trade in certain circumstances. However, I can't stand it when people won't provide a link on here, so as I have said I have found a very good article to share. It is by an economist. Hopefully it will help readers to think through the issues for themselves.
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/05/the-free-trade-blues/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0
Here is one quote that I thought was interesting: "Many economists continue to believe that increased foreign trade is a rising tide that will eventually lift all boats." I sometimes laugh heartily when economists coldly calculate the impact of economics on regular people. Notice the weasel word 'eventually' in that sentence. With that word in the sentence, I actually believe that the sentence is true in probably 100% of cases. But 'eventually' can be a significant amount of time. In bad situations it can be 50 or more years. And things can really suck pretty damn bad, and get worse for a while, for a significant portion of a people. But, it always immediately benefits wealthy people. In such cases, free trade should hardly be called good economic policy, whatever the eventual benefits.
I became a computer programmer, because I knew that the career would likely ride out the tides that I knew were coming to our middle classes. Now those tides have arrived, and I have been doing dandy while others struggle. It is easy for me to take some solace on behalf of those others in the fact that those tides will
eventually lift all boats. But I would nevertheless sorely hate to be one of them. And I could be, should conditions change and my strategy ultimately fail.
The American people have been sold a load of bull**** about the way this whole globalization deal was going to work out for them. It was largely sold to them through manipulative storytelling based on oversimplified views of the way economics works.