I instead want to focus on one infrequently mentioned protectionist fallacy – namely, the protectionist presumption that their fellow citizens regularly spend and invest their own money stupidly.
That protectionists have such a low opinion of their fellow citizens becomes obvious upon inspection of protectionists’ many assertions about the current state of the economy. In the United States, we Americans are constantly told by protectionists that as international trade grew freer and more frequent from the mid-1970s until around 2018, America’s industrial economy was “hollowed out,” especially by imports of cheap T-shirts and trinkets. We’re also told that the now half-century-long run of annual trade deficits has transferred much of our wealth to foreigners. Protectionists further insist that American producers have been out-competed by wily foreigners — and simply can’t compete unless our government handicaps US imports and subsidizes US exports. And protectionists never tire of complaining that American workers, although desperate for jobs in manufacturing plants, have lost such jobs to low-wage workers abroad.
The fact that none of these empirical claims made by protectionists is even remotely true is not my central point. Instead, I wish to emphasize that each of these protectionist claims implies that we Americans are dismayingly dull-witted — that we are childishly irresponsible with our own money, and that, at least in comparison with non-Americans, we are buffoons in matters of commerce, industry, and entrepreneurship.
Do note, however, that when protectionists tell their tales they speak and write as if the only actors who take initiative in international commerce are foreigners. In these tales, we Americans are inert; we’re passive players and, as such, become victims. Foreigners cheat us… foreigners take our jobs… foreignersoutcompete us… foreigners destroy our industries… foreigners buy up our assets and load us down with debt… foreigners enrich themselves at our expense. But of course each and every one of the international commercial transactions in which foreigners allegedly inflict these nefarious consequences on Americans is a transaction to which an American (or group of Americans) is a voluntary party.
Protectionists’ opinion of their fellow citizens could hardly be lower. As protectionists see matters, most of us wind up poorer after each commercial transaction with non-Americans, despite the fact that we continue voluntarily to engage in such transactions. Perhaps we are too senseless to realize the deepening impoverishment that each of us suffers after each economic engagement with a foreigner. Or maybe we are so delusional that we continue to hope that, although we have consistently been harmed by foreigners when trade is free, we’ll soon turn the tables on those cunning merchants who ship us their goods from abroad.
It’s easy to understand why, in protectionist tales, foreigners act with initiative and astuteness while Americans react passively and dully. Ironically, were protectionists to portray their fellow citizens as being the intellectual equals of foreigners – to portray their fellow citizens as being as active and as intelligent as foreigners – protectionists would forsake the ability to blame foreigners for the mythical damage that trade does to America.
In most protectionist fables, the good guys and gals – domestic citizens – must also serve as the fables’ dolts, who fall victim to devious and smarter foreigners.
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