6/23/2023 0 Comments Milton friedman freedom![]() ![]() Producers of steel and steelworkers' unions press for restrictions on steel imports from Japan. ![]() Today, as always, there is much support for tariffs-euphemistically labeled "protection," a good label for a bad cause. Tariffs have since been reduced by repeated international agreements, but they remain high, probably higher than in the nineteenth century, though the vast changes in the kinds of items entering international trade make a precise comparison impossible. The United States had tariffs throughout the nineteenth century, and they were raised still higher in the twentieth century, especially by the Smoot-Hawley tariff bill of 1930, which some scholars regard as partly responsible for the severity of the subsequent depression. The only major exceptions are nearly a century of free trade in Great Britain after the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, thirty years of free trade in Japan after the Meiji Restoration, and free trade in Hong Kong under British rule. Ever since Adam Smith there has been virtual unanimity among economists, whatever their ideological position on other issues, that international free trade is in the best interests of trading countries and of the world. Economists often do disagree, but that has not been true with respect to international trade. ![]() It is often said that bad economic policy reflects disagreement among the experts that if all economists gave the same advice, economic policy would be good. ![]()
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