Assume that all of the following from The Guardian is true. Much of it is but assume all is:
Pillar 4: free movement of goods, people and money
To be truly economically orthodox means opposing trade barriers, curbs on immigration and capital controls, because all these restrictions put up barriers to economic efficiency. Most of the fast-growing countries of east Asia have used protectionism to support economic development, but most economists support the idea that trade should be liberalised, investors allowed to move their money from country to country, and migrant labour should be used to tackle skills shortages.
The case for: Protectionism means slower growth.
The case against: Without a degree of protectionism there will be no meaningful renaissance of manufacturing.
The unexamined assumption there, the one that is dangerous, is that we should desire a renaissance of manufacturing.
Protectionism does two things. Firstly, it makes us poorer right now - by definition it does. We’re deliberately insisting that things must be more expensive than they need be. That’s the entire function of tariffs, quotas and all the rest. To ensure that things within the protectionist trade barriers are higher priced than those without. We’ve always wondered why it is that so many on the left of politics support this idea. After all, that is synonymous with - actually, it is exactly the same as - demanding that the domestic capitalist be able to make higher profits at the expense of the domestic consumer. We grasp why the capitalists like this, just not why so many of the tribunes of the people do.
Secondly, yes, it makes growth slower - making the future poorer as well. For it is competition that improves productivity. Competition from the best in the world - being open to that trade and competition from those best in the world - increases productivity more than its absence does.
So, there are two significant counts against protectionism. To which the offered counterargument is that without it - without us being poorer now, and also the future being poorer - we will not have a renaissance in manufacturing.
The value of that being the thing which needs to be examined. Why would we desire a renaissance in manufacturing? What benefit or value would it produce for us? Other than the obvious, making us poorer now and poorer in the future?
We appear to have something close to full employment right now - at least among those who desire to work we do. We’ve no need to run around and invent jobs for people to do. We don’t seem to have a greater shortage of manufactured items than we do of the provision of services. Quite the contrary in fact. Anyone who wants one can find a TV, or sofa, computer or pair of shoes - manufactures all. It’s health care, child care, elderly care, social care, even decent economic policy, which is in short supply - services all. So, why would we want to redirect those scarce economic resources of capital and labour away from those things we are told we’ve a shortage of to those we seem to have an ample supply of?
Well, we wouldn’t - and that’s before we even consider the effects of the necessary protectionism on our current and future well being.
Take all that The Guardian has said as being true - then examine the unexamined assumption about the desirability of that renaissance of manufacturing. Upon that examination we don’t in fact desire that at all - therefore free trade it is and into the fiery pits of economic damnation with the protectionists.
As universities have known for a millennia now, examinations do indeed uncover who knows what they’re talking about.