Endorsing individuals’ freedom to trade with foreigners is simply of a piece with the more general endorsement of individuals’ freedom to trade with whomever they please, whether fellow citizens or not. The protectionist position, in contrast, invariably relies upon arbitrary distinctions that ensnare protectionists in intellectual and ethical inconsistencies.
Must the US counteract Beijing’s subsidies with high tariffs?
Just as there’s absolutely no reason for you to worry about the trade deficit that you have with your physician or your grocer, there’s absolutely no reason for us Americans to worry about the trade deficit that America has with China.
Americans should ask protectionists such as Donald Trump and Josh Hawley just how America is put ‘first’ by US government trade barriers that constrict ordinary Americans’ freedom to spend their incomes as they choose.
Biden’s protectionism is overwhelmingly and above all about expanding and cementing his political support by creating rents for special-interest groups.
The most equitable and just sharing of the burden of America’s military is assured by its all-volunteer nature, and that conscription would be inequitable and unjust.
Cold weather kills about ten times the number of people who are killed by hot weather,
America’s ability to “absorb” immigrants is greater today than it was in the past.
Ending the war on drugs would significantly shrink the scope of law-enforcement officers’ incentives and abilities to violate the civil and property rights of Americans – even, indeed chiefly, of Americans who do not and would never use hard drugs, be these legal or illegal.
History provides very few actual examples of private firms that are unprotected by government-erected barriers to entry successfully colluding in ways that harm consumers.
The conventional tale of trade deficits fails so utterly to square with reality because tellers of this conventional tale never seriously bother to attempt to understand why foreigners are willing, decade after decade, to send to America more goods and services than they receive in return from America.
Describing as “favorable” a situation in which the people of the home country ship many real goods and services to foreigners and receive in exchange lesser amounts of real goods and services, with the difference made up in money, is indeed – as Adam Smith called it – absurd.
Another example of “Soiled by Socialism” is government-mandated low-flow water faucets, showerheads, and toilets.
Far from ordinary Americans being crushed in the last few decades by globalization and the entrepreneurial dynamism ordinary Americans’ economic opportunities have expanded and their standard of living has skyrocketed.
Advocate and work for a removal of all protective barriers erected by the British government without concern for whether governments in the US and elsewhere follow suit. Were you to pursue a policy of unilateral free trade, you would honor – by following it – Britain’s glorious free-trade tradition.
National conservatives believe that the allocation of resources brought about by the free market is in fact a less-efficient allocation — one that is worse for the country — than is the allocation that would be brought about by their industrial policy.
Trade allows each of us to turn our unique talents into the fruits of the talents of everyone with whom we trade.
There is no plausible case to be made that for us Americans to improve our comparative advantages, we need the government to protect any of us from foreign competition, other than the protection of individual rights.
“No, Sarah, Our Prosperity Wasn’t Extracted from Slaves”
Amazon has made its platform so attractive to third-party merchants that large numbers of them willingly pay a premium in order to continue to use Amazon’s platform.
The ominous parallels between the mainstream narrative on the climate and the mainstream narrative on covid.
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