Comment by tartoran
9 hours ago
This is it pretty much, not sure why it took so long to come to this realization. Was it greed that caused a warp in rational and common sense?
9 hours ago
This is it pretty much, not sure why it took so long to come to this realization. Was it greed that caused a warp in rational and common sense?
Just the religious belief that The Free Market will solve everything on its own and there should be no attempt to interfere with it.
I never understood this, I believe very strongly in the free market, but only where there is a free market. Of course you can let the free market run free up to the border of e.g. the US but surely it won't solve international trade since many countries do not have a free market. Unless we agree some international rules such that the boundary of the free market "sandbox" becomes the earths borders.
It's why I also think it is possible to hold a pro-free-market pro-tariff position simultaneously without contradiction. Tariffs could be used to "level set" manipulation from foreign governments and make the incoming goods behave as if they were not manipulated (thus also reducing the incentive to manipulate in the first place).
Not sure this is how tariffs are being used in reality.
You are 100% correct. Free Trade hasn't been disproven, only the inane notion that one should pursue unreciproval free trade with a countries that perform mercantalism against them.
The consumer isn't everything, the worker does matter just as much.
Greed. When China was becoming manufacturing powerhouse, it was incredibly cheap, and Chinese government seemed extremely willing to play ball by making sure there was no government caused slowdowns. This obviously worked until it didn't but even now, it's so expensive to change, corporations are screaming about their quarterly stock price and US being so financialized, US in a real gordian knot.
Greed sure, but also optics. In the US at least, we love to condemn China for being "communist" and not a real democracy. Remember, for the US, communist has been the number one enemy for a long time. Obviously, we can't do what they do.
But we do what they do, and China isn't even communist.
China is communist. Interesting how often outsiders are so sure a country led by the CPC isn’t Marxist.