Here’s what I want you to do for the good of the country: Go pay $12.50 for a pair of Wigwam hiking socks. I hear they’re really good.

If enough of you splurge, then maybe Wigwam’s boss will stop urging the government to make cheaper socks more expensive for everyone else.

Consider it a targeted bribe to promote the general welfare. It would be timely. Free-trade arguments are the tussle of benefits for particular interests against benefits for all. Unfortunately, the particular seems to be beating the general nowadays.

See how trade combusted this week: Senators Clinton and Obama sniped about who hates the North American Free Trade Agreement more. Canada ended up apologizing after a leaked diplomatic memo intimated that Mr. Obama’s loathing was less than utter. Heaven forbid, at least in Ohio: Among Democrats there, to hate NAFTA is to save jobs.

Specific jobs, too, held by people who suspect they could be done by someone overseas earning a lot less. Never mind that most economists say most of the fall in manufacturing employment is because it takes fewer people to make things, or that most economists say free trade’s a net gain for most people and results in millions of new jobs. Specific people think their specific jobs are at stake, so politicians empathize.

Look at Wigwam Mills of Sheboygan, Wis. The company is thriving. Its CEO, Robert Chesebro Jr., told a newspaper that millions of pairs of cheap socks made chiefly in Honduras aren’t a direct threat. Wigwam sells much more expensive footwear at specialty outdoors stores. Its socks conquer pain and sweat via fine wool and superior craftsmanship.

As a result, its factory hums, unlike much of the U.S. sock industry. Wigwam employs 240, some of them third-generation. It pays $11.50 an hour for semi-skilled work. It affords workers 10 paid holidays annually.

Then why is Mr. Chesebro worried? He is decrying the free-trade deal that put Honduras in the socks business. He favored America doing what it did in January, reinstating a 13.5% tariff on socks from Honduras.

Why? He’s worried about his yarn supplier. Wigwam’s the biggest customer for Crescent Woolen Mills in Two Rivers, Wis., a maker of high-end yarns. Crescent has suffered as domestic production of cheaper socks has faded. If things fade more, “I am not sure we will be able to survive,” co-owner John Webster told a newspaper. And without Crescent, Wigwam would find it harder to get American-made yarn, said Mr. Chesebro.

So, to sum up: You should have to pay 13.5% more for cheap socks so that the guy selling really expensive socks can worry less about one of his suppliers. This shows why free trade is having hard sledding: No one lobbies against paying 13.5% more on a bag of bargain socks at Target. The consumers are a general interest. Opponents of free trade are the ultimate in special interests, their benefits definite, concentrated, and worth preserving via tariffs.

The special interests mean well. Mr. Chesebro appears to be a good boss. His staff undoubtedly works hard and well. Repeat this 100,000 times in all the factories dotting the swing states of the Midwest, however, and it turns the debate about trade away from consumers and toward producers.

We notice this in odd circumstances. In his first term, President Bush tried to protect domestic steelmakers with tariffs on imported metal. This shafted those manufacturers that buy steel.

Compared to sock buyers, they were few, and their accountants could quantify their pain. Steel users’ complaints were loud and led Mr. Bush to lift the tariffs.

But usually, the attention goes to the producer — manufacturers, say, and employees supplying them with labor. The debate on trade proceeds on the premise that the scarcest thing in America is work to be done and that preserving this should be the public priority.

By sheer intuition, anyone knows that in most of life, there’s no shortage of things needing to be done. The shortage, instead, is stuff: Most of us can’t afford all we want. The numbers say this formally. Unemployment remains low generally — 4.8% in Sheboygan — and employers complain they can’t find enough staff.

Socks, again, are instructive. In America, Fort Payne, Ala., dominates the trade. But its dozens of sock mills are survivors. More than 100 other mills in the city recently have closed because of competition from Latin America. Some 4,000 jobs vanished, many low-skill and involved in stitching socks’ toes. The town’s toast, right?

No. Most of the laid-off workers have new jobs as other industries, many paying better than socks, showed up. The new, better jobs were spurred by an economy that until lately has been booming. The boom was assisted by free trade — both because manufacturers could readily sell in foreign markets and because consumers got more goods for their money, thanks to low-cost foreign labor. This needs to be repeated. One feels for nervous yarn companies and for fretting steelworkers, but third-generation sockmakers who want to be succeeded by a fourth generation in exactly the same occupation are the narrowest of special interests. The tariffs to protect them and all the other special interests will cost us all dearly as they accumulate. To end free trade is to make the many serve the few, one costlier pair of socks at a time.

Mr. McIlheran is a columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.