Week 2 Discussion — Who Should Do What, and Who Pays? — Traditional alternative (no AI)

Instructors: publish this instead of the adaptive version if you prefer, and unpublish or delete the adaptive one.

Hook

At the food stand, Amara is faster at everything, yet both partners end up with more by letting Diego make the sandwiches. A whole country can run the same arithmetic and still argue for years, because the extra output lands on many people while the lost jobs land on a few towns.

Your discussion question — choose Option A or Option B; they carry the same weight and the same rubric, and you say which you picked.

Option A: Imagine a country where cheaper imported furniture lowers prices for buyers everywhere while a furniture-making town loses many of its jobs. Should that country choose freer trade or more trade protection for furniture? Take a position, label which of your claims are positive (checkable) and which are normative (value judgments), and support it with one reason or example.

Option B: Think of a household, team, club, or workplace you know. Should the person who is best at almost everything do most of the work there? Take a position using absolute and comparative advantage, support it with one example of your own, and name one thing specialization might cost that the food-stand model leaves out.

There is no single right answer. The model's positive result is that specialization by comparative advantage raises total output; people still disagree about how to weigh who gains and who bears the adjustment cost. Pick the option you actually care about, and tell us your reasoning.

Expectations

Activity format: one initial post followed by two substantive peer replies. Plan on about 45 minutes across the two deadlines; your instructor sets both due dates in Canvas.

Your initial post — by the first due date (early in the module week):

• Say which option you chose.
• For Option A, say whether the country should choose freer trade or more trade protection for furniture, and label each of your claims positive or normative; for Option B, say whether the person best at almost everything should do most of the work, and name one cost of specialization the food-stand model leaves out.
• Use at least two of this week's terms (absolute advantage, comparative advantage, opportunity cost, specialization, terms of trade, gains from trade, freer trade, trade protection, adjustment cost, positive statement, normative statement) correctly.
• Give your reason, and say what would change your mind.
• Length: roughly 150–250 words if written. You may instead record your post as audio or video (about two minutes) and attach a transcript; both forms are scored by the same rubric.
• Keep any example you invent away from real people, and never name a living politician, party, or news outlet.

Your replies — by the second due date (the end of the module week):

• Reply substantively to at least two classmates.
• A substantive reply does more than agree: state the strongest version of the poster's view in your own words, point out a positive claim they treated as normative or the reverse, or ask who bears the adjustment cost in their case. "Nice point!" on its own does not count.

What a strong post looks like:

I chose Option B. In my family's restaurant, my aunt is the fastest cook and the fastest cashier, but every hour she spends at the register is an hour of cooking we lose, so her opportunity cost of running the register is high. My cousin is slower at both but gives up much less to run the register, so he has the comparative advantage there. That is a positive claim I could check by timing a shift. My normative claim is that he should run the register even on busy nights. What specialization costs that the model leaves out: if my aunt is sick, nobody else knows her recipes.

Notice how it keeps absolute and comparative advantage apart, labels its positive and normative claims, and names a cost the model leaves out. That is the bar.

Participation rubric

This discussion is worth 10 points. The three criteria below look at your initial post and your peer replies.

Post early if you can — the best threads happen when people have time to reply before the second due date.

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