Quote:
Originally posted by Skeks in the city
Whoah, there buddy. If the most productive use for land in a river valley was as a resevoir, you'd howl like a stuck pig if the government flooded the property in that valley without fully compensating the owners of the property. How is free trade so different? Free trade helps some people at the expense of others. Full compesation is a reasonable demand. If free trade results in some people taking jobs that pay less, why shouldn't they get some permanent benefit like an earned income tax credit?
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If I may, I think Club's difference of opinion originates from his child-like wonder at markets. Unlike you, he doesn't realize that markets wouldn't exist but for the governments that protect them, prescribe their operations, and enforce their rules. To him, free trade preexisted protectionism. Silly, I know, but bear with me. So the default position for him is no trade barriers internationally
ab initio; if American workers have been receiving a wage premium in the international labor marketplace as a result of protectionism since 1604, they're merely going to lose what the government had no right to give them in the first place, so no tears and no reparations, there's no crying in baseball.
