Here’s a letter to a new correspondent.
Mr. L__:
Thanks for your email.
Calling me a “tiresome free trade fanatic,” you write that “it is unreasonable to rule out unconditionally the possibility of government restricting imports in such a manner as to improve our country’s overarching economic conditions. Adults keep this option open.”
I don’t rule out this possibility unconditionally; I rule it out only on the condition that the creatures in government are human beings – that is, self-interested individuals with limited knowledge. If a benevolent God-like deity were to take the reins of government, I’d concede that such an omniscient being could indeed improve the economy with surgically imposed import restrictions. (I’d still oppose such restrictions, however, on moral grounds, as I treasure economic freedom as an end it itself.)
But until God sets up shop on Pennsylvania Avenue, I will oppose the government trying to improve the economy by restricting imports for the same reason that I oppose the government trying to improve the economy by sending out gangs of thugs to destroy a certain percentage of our household possessions and the capital stock of American companies.
Clever sophomores can write – as some economists have actually written – whiteboard theories under which import restrictions imposed just so will make everyone better off economically. To do so is child’s play – just as it’s child’s play to write a theory under which government-mandated destruction of X percentage of household goods and Y percentage of companies’ capital stock will make everyone better off economically. Yet I suspect that you’d have no patience for anyone proposing to keep this latter option “open.”
Adults reject policies that are justified only by such childish games. And so adults reject protectionism as a means of improving the economy.
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
