> You are missing that for capital in England to move to Portugal, something has to move the other way.
Why? Because nature abhors a vacuum? :-)
As far as I can tell, production doesn't really move to the poorest countries like the one in my example. It seems that it moves to countries that have an absolute (not just comparative) advantage in manufacturing costs.
Well, because "England" and "Portugal", on the level that Ricardian comparative advantage really works, aren't really countries, but sets of people (and, really, the comparative advantage really exists on the individual level, its existence between sets of people is simply an aggregate of its individual existence.)
Absent an external actor using force to compel an involuntary transfer, productive capital moving from person E to person P requires some item(s) of value moving to E such that the value to E justifies surrendering the capital.
Why? Because nature abhors a vacuum? :-)
As far as I can tell, production doesn't really move to the poorest countries like the one in my example. It seems that it moves to countries that have an absolute (not just comparative) advantage in manufacturing costs.