Free Trade
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The Case For Diplomacy and Engagement Over Brinkmanship
“We must light the way with our example through engagement, trade, and a commitment to walking what we talk. With darkness and chaos on the rise in every corner of the globe, we must feed the flame of liberty and broadcast it across the night, not shut it off.” ~ Ethan Yang
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Some Problems with the ‘Repatriating Critical Supply Chains’ Argument
“Even if political pressures were miraculously to disappear, government officials would remain ignorant of most of the detailed bits of knowledge about how resources are, and potentially can be, used. And so any errors these officials make in distinguishing ‘critical’ from not-critical goods and services will result in resources being used more wastefully than otherwise.”…
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You Think This Is A Game? Not Quite
“Sports and gaming metaphors certainly have their place, but if we take them too seriously we get lost in details and lose sight of the greatest positive-sum game in the world: specialization and division of labor. When you’re bowling or playing a board game, there’s a winner and a loser. When you’re bargaining, however, everyone’s…
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Steel Follies and the Perils of Politically-Controlled Trade
“American citizens and manufacturers should be allowed to buy every commodity they choose as cheaply as the world can produce it. The time has come to end the medieval pursuit of a “just price” for imports and to cease permitting politicians and bureaucrats to have economic life-and-death power over American businesses.” ~ James Bovard
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Covid’s Vindication of Free Movement
“This pandemic is not ending because borders were sufficiently impenetrable. But it must be said that its effects have been mitigated because many of the most essential forms of capital continued to flow. If the free movement of people, goods, and ideas could pull the world out of one of its darkest chapters, there’s no…
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The Mischief of “Pecuniary Externalities”
“Perhaps my long discourse on ‘pecuniary externalities’ strikes the reader as ponderous or even pointless. Ponderous it probably is, but pointless it is not. If the above reality were more widely understood, many fewer people would complain about foreigners using their exports as a means of ‘stealing our jobs.'” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux
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The Dangerous Path of Trump-Biden Trade Isolationism
“It would be wise for our leaders, particularly those in the Biden administration, to heed the clear lessons put forth in our Constitutional system as well as the tides of history. An embrace of free trade will promote widespread prosperity but most importantly, it will prevent a backslide into a past sequence of events that…
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Gordon Tullock: A Birthday Appreciation
“Long after many influential economists have been relegated to footnotes or forgotten, I believe people will still be reading and citing Tullock’s work, and not as historical curiosities, either. They will be reading and citing the work of a scholar who made timeless contributions to how we understand the world.” ~ Art Carden
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A Nuanced Approach to China Part One
“Diplomacy, economic engagement, and the reserved use of military force are the core principles that define disciplined interstate relations. Throwing them out in favor of romanticized visions of conflict and glory would be playing checkers while China is playing chess.” ~ Ethan Yang
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Twelve Principles of International Trade: Part 4
“When combined with the empirically verified reality that increased trade between nations decreases the likelihood of those nations getting into shooting wars with each other, what is left of the national-security exception to the case for unilateral free trade is very narrow indeed.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux
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•
The Case For Diplomacy and Engagement Over Brinkmanship
“We must light the way with our example through engagement, trade, and a commitment to walking what we talk. With darkness and chaos on the rise in every corner of the globe, we must feed the flame of liberty and broadcast it across the night, not shut it off.” ~ Ethan Yang
-
•
Some Problems with the ‘Repatriating Critical Supply Chains’ Argument
“Even if political pressures were miraculously to disappear, government officials would remain ignorant of most of the detailed bits of knowledge about how resources are, and potentially can be, used. And so any errors these officials make in distinguishing ‘critical’ from not-critical goods and services will result in resources being used more wastefully than otherwise.”…
-
•
You Think This Is A Game? Not Quite
“Sports and gaming metaphors certainly have their place, but if we take them too seriously we get lost in details and lose sight of the greatest positive-sum game in the world: specialization and division of labor. When you’re bowling or playing a board game, there’s a winner and a loser. When you’re bargaining, however, everyone’s…
-
•
Steel Follies and the Perils of Politically-Controlled Trade
“American citizens and manufacturers should be allowed to buy every commodity they choose as cheaply as the world can produce it. The time has come to end the medieval pursuit of a “just price” for imports and to cease permitting politicians and bureaucrats to have economic life-and-death power over American businesses.” ~ James Bovard
-
•
Covid’s Vindication of Free Movement
“This pandemic is not ending because borders were sufficiently impenetrable. But it must be said that its effects have been mitigated because many of the most essential forms of capital continued to flow. If the free movement of people, goods, and ideas could pull the world out of one of its darkest chapters, there’s no…
-
•
The Mischief of “Pecuniary Externalities”
“Perhaps my long discourse on ‘pecuniary externalities’ strikes the reader as ponderous or even pointless. Ponderous it probably is, but pointless it is not. If the above reality were more widely understood, many fewer people would complain about foreigners using their exports as a means of ‘stealing our jobs.'” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux
-
•
The Dangerous Path of Trump-Biden Trade Isolationism
“It would be wise for our leaders, particularly those in the Biden administration, to heed the clear lessons put forth in our Constitutional system as well as the tides of history. An embrace of free trade will promote widespread prosperity but most importantly, it will prevent a backslide into a past sequence of events that…
-
•
Gordon Tullock: A Birthday Appreciation
“Long after many influential economists have been relegated to footnotes or forgotten, I believe people will still be reading and citing Tullock’s work, and not as historical curiosities, either. They will be reading and citing the work of a scholar who made timeless contributions to how we understand the world.” ~ Art Carden
-
•
A Nuanced Approach to China Part One
“Diplomacy, economic engagement, and the reserved use of military force are the core principles that define disciplined interstate relations. Throwing them out in favor of romanticized visions of conflict and glory would be playing checkers while China is playing chess.” ~ Ethan Yang
-
•
Twelve Principles of International Trade: Part 4
“When combined with the empirically verified reality that increased trade between nations decreases the likelihood of those nations getting into shooting wars with each other, what is left of the national-security exception to the case for unilateral free trade is very narrow indeed.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux