… is from page 61 of the 2005 reprint of Harvard economist Frank Taussig’s classic 1888 work, The Tariff History of the United States:
Although, therefore, the conditions existed under which it is most likely that protection to young industries may be advantageously applied – a young and undeveloped country in a stage of transition from a purely agricultural to a more diversified industrial condition; this transition, moreover, coinciding in time with great changes in the arts, which made the establishment of new industries particularly difficult – notwithstanding the presence of these conditions, little, if any thing, was gained by the protection which the United States maintained in the first part of this century.
DBx: And little, if anything, was gained by such protection in the second part of the century, too.
People such as Steve Bannon, Pat Buchanan, Robert Lighthizer, Michael Lind, and those at American Compass who point to America’s impressive 19th-century economic growth as evidence of the alleged benefits of protectionism read history carelessly.
In Chapter 4 of Phil Gramm’s and my forthcoming book – likely to be published in early 2025 – we go into more detail on the connection between 19th-century protectionism and American economic growth during that century. Our conclusions, backed by empirical data, are consistent with those of Frank Taussig, Doug Irwin, and Phil Magness – meaning, the opposite of the faulty conclusions of Lighthizer, Lind, et al.
