>> In the quote you offer he doesn't advocate protectionism- but assuming he did, I can only say he was in error. <<
well we can spend all sorts of time debating the meaning of the quote, but there is no debate about hamilton's stance on the protective tariff. he was the chief architect of our tariff policy.
Message 16639722
>> As Milton Friedman once pointed out in his "Free To Choose" series on PBS, it takes multiple(17, was it?) countries just to create a pencil! We cannot be as an island alone. <<
our country has always traded with the world, whether we were pursuing a heavily protectionist policy or a more liberal trade policy. to suggest that using tariffs as an economic tool means we would be isolated from the world is disingenuous.
>> Let every country compete in doing what it can do(or can do best, in many cases), free from protectionism, and life will be easier/less expensive for citizens of all countries involved <<
ok, let's explore that line of reasoning. if open borders, free trade, and unfettered markets take absolute precedence over everything else, then i suppose you would not be opposed to contracting out our defense to other nations. after all the japanese do a fine job building cars and electronics. why don't we have them build our tanks and spy cameras for us? we can buy military jets from airbus. we can have indians write the software that controls all our hi-tech weaponry, we can have places like taiwan source all the chips, and we can pay mexicans and indonesians fifty cents an hour to go fight our wars.
think of all the money we can save! |
