Saturday is trash time in Davos. On the third day of the World Economic Forum, globophobes and anticapitalists of every stripe make their voices heard — well, actually, their fists and brickbats.

One of the most dispiriting things about the current political debate is that the two sides are simply talking past each other. Globophiles rattle off streams of figures and anecdotes showing that the potential is fantastic. The evidence is on their side. Globophobes counter every statistic with a tale of human misery, the blame for which they pin on world capitalism. They are the moral victors.

In fact, since world trade flows are so intertwined, any penalty on imports or exports ends up costing all of us. But that tends to get lost in arguments over the impact of trade policies on employment at home. And unfortunately, framing the question as one of jobs gained or lost to trade plays into the hands of the globophobes.