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Ron Paul: The Case For Truly 'Free' Trade
Submitted by Ron Paul via The Misess Institute,
With recent DC politicking on both the Export-Import Bank and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, we revisit Ron Paul's 1981 essay "The Case for Free Trade" which explains the basics of truly free trade:
Although we think of ourselves as a free-trading nation, it takes more than 700 pages just to list all the tariffs on imported goods, and another 400 to inventory all the non-tariff restraints, such as quotas and "orderly marketing agreements."
A tariff is a tax levied on a foreign good, to help a special interest at the expense of American consumers.
A trade restraint or marketing agreement—on the number of inexpensive Taiwanese sneakers that Americans can buy, for example—achieves the same goal, at the same cost, in a less forthright manner.
And all the trends are towards more subsidies for U.S. exporters, and more prohibitions and taxes on imports.
Trade is to be subsidized or restrained, not left to the voluntary actions of consumers and producers.
In 1930, Congress passed the Smoot-Hawley tariff bill, imposing heavy tariffs on imports, with the avowed motive of "protecting" U.S. companies and jobs. Within one year, our 25 major trading partners had retaliated with their own tariffs on American goods. World trade declined sharply, and the depression was made world-wide and longer-lasting.
Today the policy of protectionism is again gaining favor in Congress, and in other countries. But it must be fought with all our strength.
Not only does protectionism make everyone poorer—except certain special interests—but it also increases international tensions, and can lead to war.
"If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it," wrote Adam Smith in 1776, "better buy it of them with some part of the pro duce of our own industry, employed in a way in which we have some advantage. The general industry of the country will not therefore be diminished... but only left to find out the way in which it can be employed to the greater advantage."
An important economic principle is called the division of labor. It states that economic efficiency, and therefore growth, is enhanced by everyone doing what he does best.
If I had to grow my own food, make my own clothes, build my own house, and teach my own children, our family's living standard would plummet to a subsistence, or below-subsistence, level.
...
Every economic intervention in trade, domestic or foreign, should be abolished, for practical and moral reasons.
Even if other countries maintain tariffs or subsidies, we would be helped, not hurt, by unilaterally ending ours.
We would improve our productivity, shift resources to those areas where we 'have an advantage, grow more pros-perous, and make a greater variety of less-expensive goods available to our people.
And we would serve the cause of peace and set a good example for the world to emulate.
"When people and goods cross borders," Ludwig von Mises used to quote, "armies do not." Free and extensive trade, unsubsidized, between the peoples of the Earth lowers tensions and makes us all better off It is, morally and economically, the only proper policy.
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You don't need a treaty to trade with someone, you just do it.
However when there is an armed and psychotic government standing in the way of your trading, it gets a little hairy...
Take a look at number 2 at our own fed....
The U.S.-Israel Joint Economic Discussion Group fundamentally transformed U.S. aid to Israel forever. Before the Reagan administration, most U.S. aid to Israel took the form of loans that had to be repaid with interest. After the input of Fischer's team, subsequent U.S. aid was delivered in the form of outright grants paid directly from the U.S. Treasury—never to be repaid or conditioned when Israel took actions the U.S. opposed.
Like many of Fischer's later IMF austerity programs, the Joint Discussion Group initially announced that strings attached to the aid would make it temporary. Secretary of State George Shultz insisted during a 1985 address to AIPAC that "Israel must pull itself out of its present economic trauma . . . . No one can do it for them . . .our help will be of little avail if Israel does not take the necessary steps to cut government spending, improve productivity, open up its economy and strengthen the mechanisms of economic policy. Israel and its government must make the hard decisions." [ii] Shultz wanted to make the huge American cash transfer conditional on major Israeli economic reforms, but intense AIPAC lobbying in Congress threatened to make the State Department influence irrelevant. In the end, Congress delivered aid without Israeli sacrifices, such as selling off bloated state-owned industries and spending belt-tightening. The proposed privatization of $5 billion in state enterprises threatened too much bureaucratic "turf" and too many jobs, so Israel put them on hold. Fischer apologetically characterized the Likud years as a "wasted opportunity by a government that should have known better."[iii] Not until 1996 were Fischer's proscribed economic remedies adopted by American neoconservative consultants to Benjamin Netanyahu as minor points in the "Clean Break" manifesto for Israeli regional hegemony. They remain among the few unimplemented tasks in a plan that called for military action against Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.
Despite the absence of any real economic reforms that would take Israel off the American taxpayer dole, Fischer co-wrote a blustering 1986 article for the Wall Street Journal called "Israel Has Made Aid Work" that AIPAC circulated widely as an official memorandum of its achievements. "Israel is the largest single recipient of economic aid from the U.S. This is partly because the economic stability of Israel is uncertain and is important to U.S. national interests. Therefore a report on the progress of the Israeli economy is relevant to policy decisions to be made here." Fischer never bothered to substantiate his premise, that U.S. national interests were somehow served by the bailout or that any aid given to Israel produced tangible benefits. Instead Fischer delivered a fusillade of dry and all but unreadable statistics about Israel's temporary economic performance.
Issues of long-term importance to most Americans, such as returning U.S. aid to the traditional format of loans to be repaid and the likely impact of the FTA on U.S. jobs went unaddressed by Fischer. Fischer's core achievement—that the transformation of aid from loans to outright taxpayer give-aways—has been unchanged since 1986. The premises behind this ever-increasing entitlement and one-sided FTA performance are likewise never reexamined by Congress—despite the fact that a majority of polled Americans have come to oppose aid increases to Israel. Fischer's rare admonitions that Israel be held to account, unlike the economies he transformed through biting IMF austerity programs, have remained nothing more than lip service.
At the end of 2004 Israel's U.N. ambassador recruited Fischer to become the head of Israel's central bank, asking, "Why not be our governor?"[iv] Fischer accepted and initially provided endless amusement to reporters by insisting on speaking Hebrew during press conferences and refusing to speak English. Initial concerns that Fischer's global stature and experience would overshadow and chafe the relevant players in Israel proved unfounded as Fischer moved energetically into his new role. AIPAC continued to trumpet Fischer's accomplishments steering Israel through the global financial crisis, though beneath the surface he was performing far more serious tasks for Israel and its global lobby.
Hoist the Jolly Roger.
I like Ron Paul, Rand not so much. However I might point out that when the USA was at its best, when workers made a good and living wage and jobs were plentiful we had TARIFFS oh yes, and it kept our jobs HERE. I used to be a libertarian, but then realized that Alissa Rosenbaum aka Ayn Rand and Robert Ringer and the rest of them were insincere.
That maybe, after all, despite the calumny and vituperative smears launched against him that Pat Buchanan was RIGHT!
Buchanan To WSJ: It Wasn’t Patriots Who Led GOP, America To Disaster–It Was You!
By Patrick J. Buchanan May 18, 2015
The GOP And The Trans-Pacific Partnership: On a Fast Track to National Ruin
By Patrick J. Buchanan May 7, 2015
The guns of government got us here, chief....yes....including Tariffs. This is not the result of free market philosophy or activity.
Tariffs were not what caused the economic boom after WWII, rather it is the obliteration of the productive capacity of the non-Socialist parts of the industrialized world. That production which was not still planned under the boot heel, was simply not there.
Pretty easy to have a booming economy, when there is NO competition for your goods to rebuild the planet after you just got done carpet bombing it.
This is bullshit. Smoote Hawley was imposed at a time when we still had a positive trade balance. I sure wish someone could explain how, since we have reduced and eliminated import tariffs while also increasing taxes and regulations on domestic producers, that we have also watched as our employment metrics And trade balance have gone to shit. Free trade between countries is for suckers unless they play by the same rules. We have been importing trillions from China with virtually NO tariffs while they tax the shit out of everything we sell to them while also making damned sure foreign investments are held at a minimum and intellectual property is non existent.
This bullshit of keeping American costs low through unrestricted trade is just nuts when compared to the glorious effects we are all enjoying.....all those really sweet smart phones and flat screen TVs. The proof of how well its working will be when we can buy consumer electronics with our EBT card.
I support free trade between states but beyond that we should have tariffs specific to every product and foreign producer. It is the one responsibility that our constitution grants to the federal government,,,to protect the american citizen from foreign invasion, and if anyone here thinks that unrestricted trade AND immigration are not as valid an invasion as boots on the ground, then you have NO understanding of what warfare really is. Money is always the principle weapon.
Why look at only after WWII? It fits a story, but implies an incorrect ending. Manufactures tariffs were in place from George Washington per Hamilton's advice via his report on manufactures until Reagan. The true American System which is not Keynesian or Austrian. It contains some of the best ideas of both, without the bullshit of either. America was about taking the best, practical ideas of Europe and filtering out all the bullshit, or if you will, the dogma of Europe. Sadly, today the debate is over which dogma do we wish to employ.
The manufacturers tariffs was a policy that benefited the United States for ~200 years. Tariffs didn't get in the way of our powerhouse or hurt our 'competitiveness', it insulated us from globalists dirty tricks which they wished to wreck us, and who have continued that fight against us, until they finally corrupted enough of us to succeed. That insulation we had allowed us the opportunity to become competitive, and when coupled with our focus on technological progress, and away from the dogmas of Europe, created what we became and in time we overtook Europe.
In addition, with all these tariffs in place, it allowed our manufactures to create self-sufficiency within our country so we were not beholden to international money changers for that which we needed to live, or the whims of kings and dictators. If all our shit was made in China, like now, would we have won WWII when Japan was occupying it? What about if we decide to continue our fucking with China and Russia? Whoops.
Today we see this fight similarly taking place, but not in Europe, instead it is happening in Asia. They are attempting to, and in many ways have succeeded in taking the best of our ideals, but ditched our adopted dogma, and now proceeding to kick our ass. The AIIB is a perfect example of an American ideology that we tossed away so we can loot like an Empire, and other countries not wanting to be a part of that backwater situation. Of course Wall Street's British Imperialism has been trying to infect China for a very, very long time as well.
With all those tariffs in place, we built the behemoth we once were. Thus we have history to prove to us that tariffs are NOT what holds back such a behemoth from being created, and thus it was not just after WWII that we were one. We really have forgotten our history, when one of the key pillars that built this nation, is now so utterly forgotten, that the competing sides are fighting over similar positions that are polar opposites of what America was, and trying to state that their idiocy is one of the keys to our way out of this mess. I could say it reeks of not letting a crisis go to waste, but in this instance, I truly believe it's Paul's unwavering belief in his preferred choice of European dogma that is rendering his brain ineffectual.
After WWII, we had an immense capacity, and one that was wrongfully shuttered. I know in today's crazy world, with all these interventions, it might be hard to sift out what's needed and what's not. It's not black or white, it's grey. Keynesians say black, Austrians say white....but both are bullshit. But we didn't get to here from tariffs, or not shifting our policies on tariffs faster then others. In reality, it was the shifting of our policies to start lowering tariffs that helped us take us and many other countries, here.
We started stunting our post war manufacturing capacity with Truman's idiocy, a Wall Street whore (who sucked at his attempts to get rich on wall street) who abandoned the American way and went with the British way. We only even had a cold war because of this betrayal of Roosevelt's post war plan by Truman, kowtowing to British Imperialism and creating a rift that need not exist. Think of all the propaganda spewed, and all the wars we fought, and all the money spent on a lie. The Cold War was that era's lie like our War on Terror is today.
It's a blind myth, Keynesian like, but from the Austrian side, that free trade is beneficial.
You know what's worse then asking for lower tariffs on both sides? What Ron Paul advocates in allowing one side, the other, to have tariffs, and we don't, and somehow saying we would benefit. Neither are good, Paul's idea is worse then what the globalists are pushing. This is where Paul shows his dogmatic idiocy, and why you can't trust an Austrian or a Keynesian. Because ultimately, both sides have dogma that will hold us back, and be detrimental to American and the world. Replacing one tyranny with another is no progress. Paul just provided us with a prime example of one of his side's flaws.
The Austrian carpet bombing campaign that's been waged against the massive Keynesian fuckups, is not the only way to pick apart Keynesianism. It is not a dichotomy of Austrian vs. Keynesian. Austrians, are not the only ideology remaining. I understand the need to reign in the rapidly deteriorating situation fostered by the Keynesians, but that does not mean we should ditch one dogma for another.
What we must endeavor to do on this MEMORIAL day weekend, is remember and realize what our country actually was created around. Our media, our education, and all these ideologies that have sprung up around us which we might have adopted, have twisted and/or omitted our history so that today's American doesn't have the tools to judge anything anymore as an American. Just compare and contrast one unamerican ideology versus another unamerican ideology, with the result being, application of an unamerican, and suboptimal dogmatic European ideology.
This is what people should understand. We are today the embodiment of what we fought to escape and the methods which we shunned in order to create the ones which built this country to be what we once were. If we complete our slide back, the world will be back in a pre-United States situation, that is if we survive the slide back. In many ways we are already there. Tariffs are one of these methods we utilized, but dogmatic convulsions of European ideologies prevent rationale thinking on the issue. Both sides utilize it, thus European dogma are the only two candidates on the ballot, Austrian or Keynesian. We must get over that if we are to survive.
We must ask... where is the American candidate? Well, it's all right there, right in front of us. Some might say... what's ultimately the difference between a Republican or a Democrat? Well, I suggest taking a similar look and question... what is the ultimate difference between an Austrian or a Keynesian? You should come to a conclusion that the answers to both are very similar.
http://www.schillerinstitute.org/educ/hist/eiw_this_week/2015/0111/a.html
The above is a must read if you want to know what Wall Street was really about...hint, the same thing it is today. A taste of reality in the quote.
Oh yes, the scourge of empire has been with us since the beginning gnawing at us. We have imported, adopted, and now fully transformed to the point where such actions Hamilton fought against in the markets, our Federal reserve and other central banks, linked and increasingly competing, with additional layers of financial complexity mixed with and aided by technology, are now fully engaged in themselves! The evolution of this bastardized behavior, the constant pressure to adhere to it, led by the prevalent private coteries of any particular day, who today also uses technology which allows chat rooms by a similar cadre of private individuals, this time represented by TBTF's to have free reign to manipulate and loot with impunity. Then in order to save us from the consequences of this, How long until the actions of the Federal Reserve and other central banks become one big HFT battle? Hamilton must be rolling over in his grave. Everything that he fought to create and protect has been corrupted.
Similarly that we once took the best ideas of Europe to America, we can also decide to leave behind the bad ones that have been a tumor metastasizing on our country since even previously to that meeting before 'that' meeting under the Sycamore tree.
That filtration process didn't just happen in the beginning, it's a continual process, fought vigorously against by some, who have successfully thrown their sabot's into the gears of the machine(sabotage). More filtration can happen right now, and we have all the evidence we need. This sabotage we've endured has been holding America down, and we would have been much more of a behemoth had we obliterated it, or even merely held it in check more often. The time has come again, and this time we should finish the job.
New markets. New rules. Similarly against Keynesians, but not Austrian... definitely American. It's who we are, or were. What's American if we aren't who we are? Looking around I'd say pretty crappy.
The world is suffering a deficiency of our leadership. We aren't supposed to be the policeman of the world, we are supposed to be its moral compass via our practical ideals in motion unhindered by dogmatic European ideologies and that is our biggest and best export. Instead we pulled the bait and switch after WWII, shifting ourselves and adopting and rooting on empire meanwhile exporting the pain of this abomination in ever increasing quantities. We let Wall Street and our XYZ-ETC complex pretend to be similarly just as FDR and use our good name to rape and pillage. We loot everyone, including ourselves. The world, meanwhile is attempting to adopt our ideals in order to survive, since we have abandoned them.
We became a country upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us... as we torch it. Get ready to rebuild it, but remember to rebuilt IT, not another dogmatic European ideology.
... not so much.
Compare Rand to any career politician and he comes out on top, regardless.
Ron Paul's relationship with the Mises Institute and the Rockefellers: http://redefininggod.com/2015/02/globalist-agenda-watch-2015-update-14-t...
I heard that he became an OB-GYN because he likes to eat babies. But only the white one's because he's racist.
this is why the government goes after people who steal, they hate competition.
in 5-10 years, you will need compliance people to setup a lemonade stand on the corner of your street
you will be forced to adhere to 'diversity' quotes and buy lemonades from negros and women
You left out fags abd Bruce Jenner wannabes.
Nothing controlled by governments is free trade.
Free trade would put the money-changers, middlemen, .gov mandarins, politicos, and lawyers out of a job.
When nations tend to their parasites versus the host it's just a matter of time before it all collapses.
Controlled Opposition!
Sorry, had to. :D
Smith did not foresee forty to one wage differentials, 40% business taxes, and insane legal systems and regulation. Nor treason.
"Free trade" works out well for the globalists, who would like to see sovereigns put in their place and citizens treated like global labor units. I'd prefer to see a little more nationalism, where US based businesses selling to US workers/customers create a vibrant economy.
If our businesses have to compete with countries who pay slave wages and destroy their environments in a "free market", we will continue to lose jobs and everything that the lost American Dream once stood for.
Here is an article by Ian Fletcher, author of Free Trade Doesn't Work, from a few years ago, Six Reasons to Drop the Free Trade Myth:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2010-10-26/six-reasons-for-u-s-to...
But what if there aren't nations. Isn't that a problem.
There is only one problem with tariffs....they kind of work and are kind of necessary.
Look guys, half the population is below average and they NEED some way to make a living.
You and I both want to live somewhere with clean water and air and we owe it to our fellow man to ensure that all work places have safe working conditions. Given that, how can a sneaker manufacturer compete with China/Vietnam/India that:
1. Pollutes its air, (its almost the law there),
2. Pollutes its water,
3. Has no working condition legislation,
4. Has no building regs.
Forget wages for the moment, just on the arbitrage of building regs, environmental regs and work safety regs, the Chinese already have us on the mat pricing wise. Then insert the fact that the Chinese/Vietnamese worker is happy with 5 dollars a day and where do you go?
There MUST be a tariff levied not on the good bu the SOURCE of the good. Sneakers coming form Canada or UK, no tariff as those places both have similar environmental regs, building regs and worker safety regs. China, India, Vietnam etc...30-50% tariff to make up for the lack of same.
If we don't do this and pull manufacturing back to America there will be a revolt.
Squid
Tarrifs and Sanctions work to the same results, protectionism. And I agree with protectionism. Essentially, unemployment can be crushed if we brought back a lot of the industries like manufacturing, and if we prevent total automation. Partial automation should be allowed to help reduce overall costs, but not to the point where no jobs are created and most people will still be unemployed. I keep hearing that US unemployment is around 8% but then I read articles that state that over 90M americans are jobless or stopped looking for jobs or whatever (and then not added to the statistics), it gives me an indication that there is a real problem on the US hands. And things like Tarrifs would actually help remove a large part of this issue. But of course, big businesses don't like this, cause it eats into their profit margines. I say, forget them. Let small companies prosper and large companies end up none private but publicly owned. I have seen far too many large private companies take over and control markets, and cause more harm than good. Many here will hate me for this, I don't care. What I do care is having a productive and functioning economy. Not one that will add in prostitution, drug trade and military procurement as their GDP numbers.
You can reduce unemployment — but you cannot increase economic output — with trade barriers. Why do you harken to the days when we paid elevator boys to take us to the right floor? Those elevator boys lost their jobs to automatic elevators, but that set them free to pursue more productive work.
Did they find more productive work or did they become a dependent of the state, of state redistribution, state employment or crony corruption. There is nothing wrong with technology displacing workers to more productive roles, but when it simply sidelines them as redundant and useless as a pager, it is simply profit through destruction....and it couldn't happen without government. Millions of unemployed and under employed in the streets would not be sustainable. Debt and entitlements keeps it all rolling downhill, all while the dependents are demanding more and doing even less.
Cigar:
I once thought like you did....
but I've been watching this now for 20 years.
I watched all my company's production lines move to Mexico and all the assemblers in the states laid off. Oh sure, great for me as I was on stock purchase but those guys and gals that were laid off are on food stamps and assistance now.
And for what? So some spic getting 20 bucks a day can do their job in a facotry built in a residential area because the city palnner was bribed and the water for the plant pulled up from an illegal well etc.etc.....
NAFTA, the Mexican side of it, was a HUGE mistake. I was in favour of it at the time but like I've said, been watching this now for 20 years....it was a BIG mistake.
Squid
If China is indeed imposing tarriffs on imports from the US, and if the US is not retaliating, China is only hurting itself; it is not hurting the US. The US would not benefit any more — and it would indeed be hurt by — retaliating with tariffs. You cannot convince anyone otherwise, as it's a very simple thought experiment, and it's explained further with a game theory payoff matrix. How can you write so much and still be so thoroughly
How has China hurt itself? They own most of the worlds production, are buying up even more, plus resources and raw materials, all with money we sent them in the form of trade, a negative trade balance for decades with no end in sight. Once the dollar is displaced as the primary trade currency, our ability to print fake money to pay our trade imbalance will come to an end. It is our governments ability to print and manipulate currencies that has allowed this illusion to go on for decades.
In any world where real accounting rules applied we would not be able to sustain a massive negative trade balance for decades. They have created this illusion that we can defy all economic laws and principles. This will end.
any country that is not self sustaining food wise is asking for war.
'free trade' should not mean dependence on foreign states for food, defense, water.... or toilet paper, I suppose.
This is why people laugh at liberterians because this won't ever remotely happen and nor should it especialy on several issues related to international trade including safety, etc.
he overstates it, sure, but hows that neoliberalism working out?
People dont laugh at liberals because they're too goddamned obtuse... having been taught mostly by...wait for it... statist liberal cunts.
Protectionism vs. Free Trade is an undecided subject. There are plenty of individual cases supporting both sides.
On a side note, for over half of the United States's existence there was no income tax. In days of yore the government was certainly not as bloated as it is today, but it still needed funding. It received much of its funding through import/export taxes. I think I could live with that.
Best President we never had, and I keep waiting for a book that will take an unflinching look at the media fuckery that helped sideline his campaign. From not being invited to the only ethno-religious group/org to host a debate because he didn't kiss Israel's ass enough for those Israel Firsters, to not being named when reading off poll results, to all manner of election/ballot fraud that likely cost him 3 states.
John Stewart actually took the time to point this out at least once which made me like him even more.
In any event, that most Americans would vote for a Romney, or an Obama after watching him turn in Bush's 3rd turn, made me really realize that this country simply doesn't deserve a drop of my blood. And I didn't reup... and when you're a special kind of feller wot they've put lots of time and money into, they dont like that... but of course I'd also put together that nothing the .mil does is anything but kill mostly innocent people for Wall Street, the MIC, and Israel.
Regulations or no, so-called 'free trade' is a myth in today's highly complex society where economies-of-scale are necessary to bring prices down. Real free trade in a large and complex global community always and of necessity must lead to oligopolies which is the only mechanism capable of bringing true economies of scale. Virtually all modern food, pharmaceuticals, energy, construction, electronics, communications, transport, and so many other industries and technologies would not exist today without oligopolistic practices and mergers. People who believe in free trade were born in the wrong period. It's over, done with, had only a very brief life in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Again, a highly complex society needs massive amounts of regulations in place to keep these large businesses in check. Health, safety, environment and consumer protections are needed in such a world to protect the public from predatory business practices by an amoral corporate structure which knows only profits as its guiding light. And even the regulatory system breaks down over time as politicians and regulators are bought off and expesnive regulations are used by the dominant industries to keep smaller players out of the market and to control the regulatory environment through a revolving door system.
Point is - you can't have free trade, so get over it, and just hope that something like TPP or TTIP don't succeed, which will place our countries under the authority of large corporate interests.
"free trade" is just a fairy-tale notion for idiots who know nothing about real life
there is no free trade had never been and will never be ever
"If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it," wrote Adam Smith in 1776, "better buy it of them with some part of the produce of our own industry, employed in a way in which we have some advantage. The general industry of the country will not therefore be diminished... but only left to find out the way in which it can be employed to the greater advantage."
When the UK was the workshop of the world in the 1900s the US and Western Europe caught up by forgetting all about Adam Smith.
The UK was the home of the industrial revolution and therefore had all the technological advantages.
The US and Western Europe used tariffs on UK manufactured goods to catch up with its more advanced technology.
If Adam Smith's ideas had been popular 100 years ago the UK would still be the workshop of the world and the US would be a third world agricultural nation.
A better quote:
“Public opinion is the worst of all opinions.” – Nicolas Chamfort
How stupid ideas pass into the collective consciousness never ceases to amaze.
"House prices always go up." - a very stupid idea
1) "If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it of them"
2) "The general industry of the country will not therefore be diminished... "
the 2) is not always true but
if 2) is true then 1) indeed should be used
an interesting example is when a given country has nothing to offer at lowest price (some other country always beats it with lower cost) but it still makes sense to trade with such a country. why ?
lets say country A can produce product P1 and P2 cheaper than country B produces them
still for country A it is better to stop lets say producing P1 (and instead produce P2) ordering all of P1 from country B
In hindsight we will be able to look at the wisdom of passing most manufacturing to China and creating the next superpower.
Adopting Adam Smiths ideas seems to indicate the US is a country with a death wish.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Graph_rel_share_world...
The chart on the link above doesn't tend to support your assertion.
It shows Brit production as world share peaking shortly after mid century, then declining.
Perhaps technology was not the most compelling advantage?
Strangely, the increase in pages of laws highly correlate with the decline.
"Free trade" is an idiotic term! WTF does it even mean? "Free trade" agreements classified as state secrets?! Those "free trade" agreements are imposed on entire nations without them even realizing what they're getting into! Real trade needs to secret frameworks, countries can deal with each other as they wish, - all these "free trade" agreements like TTP and TTIP are just tools used by the USSA and their MIC sponsors as part of the "full spectrum dominance".
Back in the real world, countries that are serious about remaining free do all in their power to get the wherewithal to fight wars without assistance from other nations, and win them, free trade be damned.
Where goods cross borders armies don't, eh? That's usually because instead of invading, banksters from larger countries can simply cut off the smaller countries' food supply and starve them out. No local government wants that, so they always capitulate.
Serious about remaining free? Grow your own damn food, and harvest it yourself.