I was just looking at what both Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx had to say on free trade versus protectionism. Both Engels and Marx held that the workers movement didn't have a dog in the fights between free traders and protectionists but they certainly had thoughts on the roles that both protectionism and free trade have played in the development of capitalism.
Engels summarized their positions on free trade and protectionism in an introuction that he wrote for the 1888 edition of On the Question of Free Trade ( https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1888/free-trade/index.htm ). There, Engels poked fun at both dogmatic protectionists and dogmatic free traders. He gave some credence to the infant industries argument for protection but he held that while protectionism might have made some sense for the US in the 1860s, it no longer made sense in the 1880s. One wonders what Engels would have said about protectionism in the US in the 21st century. Engels also described how protectionism could go wrong, in the following words: > > Protection is at best an endless screw, and you never know when you have > done with it. By protecting one industry, you directly or indirectly hurt > all others, and have therefore to protect them too. By so doing you again > damage the industry that you first protected, and have to compensate it; > but this compensation reacts, as before, on all other trades, and entitles > them to redress, and so on ad infinitum. America, in this respect, offers > us a striking example of the best way to kill an important industry by > protectionism. In 1856, the total imports and exports by sea of the United > State amounted to $641,604,850. Of this amount, 75.2 per cent were carried > in American, and only 24.8 per cent in foreign vessels. British ocean > steamers were already then encroaching upon American sailing vessels; yet, > in 1860, of a total seagoing trade of $762,288,550, American vessels still > carried 66.5 per cent. > > I cannot help but think that if Trump were to get his way on tariffs, which he wants to apply not only against China but also against imports in general then we would see the kinf phenomenon that Engels described. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#33722): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/33722 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/109762258/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
