Fair Trade
Can we fix trade imbalances by enacting punitive tariffs against companies and countries? These are excerpts from a conversation on Citizen Tom’s blog. My counterpart here is not a bad person, but I certainly disagree that tariffs are the answer to trade imbalances, and I said so…
To the idea that “[t]he government did allow to US manufacturing ( Read more... )
As I see it, complex trade agreements and tariff barriers stem from the need to for control. Unfortunately, people often think we can control things we cannot control. Given too much power, politicians will pervert even the best intentions.
With respect to your debate with your counterpart on my post, here is the comment I left.
The basic reason we have a constitutional republic is that we cannot trust either our leadership or each other. Therefore, as much as possible we refrain from the use of coercion against each other.
What is the problem with such a philosophy? Our enemies, led by tyrants, see our refusal to enslave the weak among us as a sign of weakness. And we do have a real problem getting everyone to march in lockstep. However, what they see as weakness ends up being a hidden strength.
How so, you wonder? In societies where people must think for themselves, people do think for themselves. Instead of perpetually waiting for armies of bureaucrats to form committees so they can put off making decisions, individual people make their own decisions. Thus, there is far less waste and far more productivity. Therefore, even though the People may not be marching in lockstep, each individual person is far more likely to be marching the direction he or she needs to go.
Unfortunately, we have allowed government-run schools and a crony-capitalist dominated news media to teach our children. So now we risk hiding what was once our greatest strength - that self-restraint that required us to respect each others rights - even from ourselves.
We all need to read 1 Samuel 8. Even a deist like Thomas Paine saw the need to include that chapter verbatim in “Common Sense.” We don’t need a king. We don’t a big government. We do need to take the initiative to be responsible for both ourselves and our less prosperous neighbors.
Given what we have observed from our past attempts to regulate trade, I think we would be better off cutting the size of our government and freeing our enterprises from burdensome regulations. While I don't doubt the Chinese and will try to take advantage of the situation, I suspect they will still lose out if they refuse to imitate us. So long as we can keep our government small and our leaders honest we win.
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