… is from pages 357-358 of William Leggett’s January 28th, 1837, Plaindealer essay, “The Meaning of Free Trade,” as this essay is reprinted and titled in Democratick Editorials, Lawrence H. White, ed. (1984):
This is not free trade, because this is not leaving the buyer and seller free to make their own bargain. They are both under the necessity of deferring to a third party, who makes the bargain for them.
DBx: It’s amusing, but it’s even more sad, to witness Trump’s many apologists feverishly insist that Trump, and Trump above all, protects ordinary Americans from the arrogance and officiousness of elites. These fans of Trump seem to welcome having their pockets picked as long as the pocket-picker entertainingly ridicules other, competing pocket-pickers while assuring his victims that his picking their pockets will redound to their great benefit in the future. (The fact that Trump seems sincerely to believe that his trade-policy pocket-picking is in the public interest doesn’t, of course, change the fact that his trade policies pick the pockets of ordinary Americans in ways that make these Americans poorer than they would otherwise be.)
