… is from page 152 of the 1991 Robert Schalkenbach Foundation edition of Henry George‘s 1886 volume, Protection or Free Trade; George is here rightly ridiculing those who insist that other countries’ tariffs, subsidies, and other self-imposed mercantilist distortions on their economies justify the home-country government imposing similar distortions on the home-country economy:
And those who say that a nation should adopt a policy essentially bad because other nations have embraced it are as unwise as those who say, Lie, because others are false; Be idle, because others are lazy; Refuse knowledge, because others are ignorant.
