Bonus Quotation of the Day…

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… is from pages 52-53 of my late Nobel-laureate colleague James Buchanan’s 1989 paper “Free Trade and Producer-Interest Politics,” which is Chapter 6 of James M. Buchanan, Essays on the Political Economy (1989):

Free trade is, I suggest, one issue that allows classical liberals to define themselves. The observed fact that those who do understand the simple logic of free trade (which is perhaps as good a definition of economics as any other, even if the definition is grounded in practical understanding rather than technical skill) have not been at all successful at disseminating our message is, of course, discouraging. And often we may despair when we think how little public or general understanding has changed since Adam Smith mounted his attack on mercantilism in 1776. On the other hand, our very raison d’être, as economists, in the sense defined above, lies in the continuing need that this logic of free trade be repeated, reiterated, and applied, even to the point of ennui. It is too easy to lose faith in the ultimate ability of ideas to shape events and, in doing so, to shed the moral obligation to carry the message.