I&#x27;m surprised this essay doesn&#x27;t mention what I would be expect to be a big reason people don&#x27;t get comparative advantage: Because it sounds similar to something simpler that people already know, so they conflate the two ideas.<p>Because if you don&#x27;t know what the law of comparative advantage actually says, it sounds kind of like, &quot;If I am better at A than you are, and you are better than B I am, then we can benefit from trading which each other.&quot;  Which is true, but also basically obvious; the law of comparative advantage is more general than that.  There&#x27;s a reason it&#x27;s the law of <i>comparative</i> advantage and not <i>absolute</i> advantage!<p>So I would expect that a lot of people are getting what it says mixed up, because it sounds like something they already know.