Just Another Hobby Jogger wrote:
Dr. Racket wrote:
Yes, the options are either complete free trade or totally locked down, ultra restrictive to the max trade. Those are definitely the only choices, and everyone will agree there's no room at all for nuance, especially in a world where literally no country has totally free trade to begin with.
What matters the most is the policies of the less developed countries, and not those of the developed countries. The LDCs benefit the most when they were given the maximum market access. How they use that access is up to them.
some truth to a divergence between less developed and developed.
we've seen many examples of lesser developed nations using protectionism to nurture nascent industries, which then go on to become successful. South Korea for ex. I think that's fine...small nations can be overwhelmed by the giant multinationals and therefore kept poor.
But big, rich developed nations aren't going to benefit from protectionism. Only way they can do well is to innovate and make high margin items. Protecting the US textile industry, for ex, would be incredibly stupid since we have no edge there. But high tech? We can do that. Protectionism will only create4 subsidized industries that can't compete anymore, because they don't have to.