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A Protectionist is Someone Who…

… if the nominal prices of all the goods and services that he buys fall while his nominal income remains unchanged believes that his real income has thereby fallen.

Unlike intelligent people who understand that the protectionist’s real income in this case has risen, the protectionist sees only that he now has to work fewer hours and less hard to acquire the same amount of goods and services that he acquired before the prices of the goods and services that he buys fell. Thinking that his well-being is a positive function of the amount of work that he must do to acquire some given amount of goods and services for his consumption, because the fall in prices means that the protectionist no longer must work as long and as hard as before, the protectionist mistakenly believes that he is poorer than he was earlier.

The protectionist – were he that which he seldom is, namely, consistent – would aspire to be a chattel slave.

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