… is from page 54 of Marc Levinson’s (uneven) 2020 book, Outside the Box:
As for import substitution, empowering officials to award import licenses and subsidies left endless opportunities for corruption, while creating industries that were hopelessly inefficient precisely because they lacked foreign competition.
DBx: How amusing it is that so many people believe that the only, or at least the best, way to build ‘national champion industries’ is to protect the selected industries with tariffs or to shower these industries with subsidies, or both. It’s as if a boxing trainer would attempt to build a world-champion heavyweight fighter by giving that fighter performance-enhancing drugs and never letting that fighter spar against opponents. The notion that the result will be a long-lived, nimble, and able pugilist is laughable.
