A supposition from Jeremy Warner in The Telegraph:
Covid, it would seem, may end up performing much the same role as the Second World War in ushering in a new era of interventionism and deliberately pursued self sufficiency. When the pendulum swings, as it plainly is at the moment, it is hard to resist.
A less efficient economy where duplication and protectionism become the norm may be a price Western electorates are prepared to pay for a greater sense of national resilience.
We think it’s unlikely that this is true. We think what is likely is that politicians will enjoy chuntering along as the Big I Am and deciding what should be duplicated and protected in the name of that resilience - what’s the point of going into politics if it isn’t to exercise power?
What is needed therefore is a test to see whether the initial contention is true. Will people accept a reduction in their immediate standard of living in return for that greater resilience over time? Or, perhaps, given that at some extremes that’s obviously true, how much will they be willing to trade the one for the other? And, clearly, how much is it just the enjoyment of our political servants enjoying their pulling of the levers of power?
Fortunately we have a method of testing this. As we know expressed preferences are not a good guide to human desires, it is revealed ones that are. So, only if everyone is left with that free and open choice can we determine the answer. Only if all are free to purchase the cheapest from wherever, also free to buy domestic in the name of resilience, can we test the contention.
That is, unilateral free trade is not just a good idea in itself - so we say of course - it’s also the way we find out whether everyone else agrees that unilateral free trade is a good idea. If people choose to buy foreign on price grounds then they don’t think that the resilience is worth it.
What doesn’t work, logically, is an insistence that all will sacrifice for that resilience and yet also insist they must be prevented - or dissuaded, or taxed out of it - from expressing their desire on the matter. For to do that is to be insisting that they do not prefer the resilience which is why they must be forced into it.
If people prefer domestic production then leave them free to express that preference. If people don’t then leave them free to express that. The very contention that the local supply chain is preferred is all that is necessary for it to exist.
Government not only need to nothing about it it shouldn’t - the very call that government must is the insistence that the original contention is wrong.