Here’s a letter to Vox.
Editor:
Much should be carefully said about your discussion with Oren Cass of the alleged depredations of the straw man “market fundamentalism” – a phantom beast forever stalking the imaginations both of progressives and ‘nationalist conservatives’ (“The economic theory behind Trumpism,” June 22). But one point screams out for an immediate response – namely, the irony of the protectionist Mr. Cass supposing himself to be an opponent of “corporate interests.”
As the great Dartmouth economist Douglas Irwin documents in his monumental 2017 history of U.S. trade policy, protectionism in America – from the early 19th century to the early 21st – has been driven overwhelmingly by politically powerful producers intoxicated by the promise of the lucre they reap by obstructing consumers’ access to imports.
History teaches that advocating protectionism as a means of fighting corporate interests is akin to advocating subsidies for the sale of booze as a means of fighting drunkenness.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030
