Game: This or That

[Pompey Bum]

All licorice is gross.

Free trade or protectionism?

[Clopin]

I actually lean towards protectionism but it's not something I've looked into much, if you have any resource/recommended reading which compares the two I would be happy to take a look. I know I usually support free trade/markets but I dislike globalism and I actually think Smith's invisible hand works a little... too well. People will buy the cheapest goods pretty much to the exclusion of any moral considerations. I mean I like to think that I myself, as well as the people I know would not purposefully enslave a bunch of children and have them work twelve hours in grueling conditions, or expect adult workers to produce in conditions so bad they are actually killing themselves but that's what happens, invisibly anyway.

I think for example when Norway refuses to let McDonald's into their country that's a pretty good thing. *edit* apparently this is not actually a fact or anything, haha, someone told me Norway had banned McDonald's but that doesn't seem to be true, whoops.

Same question and reasons please.

[Pompey Bum]

I'm a quasi-protectionist, too, for two reasons:

1. In my life I have observed low wage workers from my country get utterly screwed when the jobs went to the barefoot Indonesian children. It has had a demonstrably bad effect on living conditions here. I was truly unprepared for some of what I saw when I toured the American Southwest a few years ago.

2. I don't really have time for an essay, but globalism is an empire in all but responsibility, if that makes any sense. But it is harder to reign in than any earlier empire. Reaction has already begun with militant Islam. When things get really bad---when Europe enters a phase of violent conflict between liberalism and nativism, we're going to have a proper nightmare on our hands.

EDIT: Oh sorry. Same question, anyone else.

[Clopin]

I would be interested in hearing Bounty's view on it as I think he tends toward free market solutions.

[Pompey Bum]

Me, too. Also DM's because she's a free thinking intellectual.

[Pendragon]

So you get the curmudgeon instead! I'm all for protectionism. Here in Southwest VA, a lot of people were employed in the garment mills. All of them went overseas. That was a lot of people out of jobs. A huge multi-million dollar factory was located in China by a Virginia business mogul who had plenty of people out of work in his own state. Then he tried to run for office, explaining he wanted to locate in VA but it never materialized. Translated: "The labor was cheaper in China, and the US doesn't add tariffs to companies who got overseas and then import back to the US to sale the product for 100X what it cost to make."

And by all means, the question continues!

[Clopin]

Strong protectionist camp on litnet! Actually I forgot Dark Muse mentioned she was a libertarian in a comment on Peter's blog so maybe she'll break the streak.

[Dark Muse]

I am really torn between the two really. There are things that appeal to me on both sides and things that make me uncmftrabke on both sides. There is a part of me that would lean towards free trade. Yet on the other hand I have moral qualms with a lot of the practices of big corporations and most the intersting and unique things can be found in the local shops. I usually always prefer to shop in local shops and eat local when I travel opposed to patronizing chains and franchises. I respect countries and states protecting thier local business.

My knee jerk response to the question was to say free trade, but well I am not an expert in the issues so when I looked into it a little I started to lean a bit more towards protectionism.

[Pompey Bum]

Bounty (or anyone else)?

[Iain Sparrow]

oh, ya'll are full of it.
Each and everyone of us wear clothes, eat food, own products that were manufactured and produced by folks working for pay and under conditions we wouldn't dream of doing ourselves. Hypocrites, we're all hypocrites!
Neither Free Trade, or Protectionist policies work very well... the real problem is with these huge multinational corporations and how they lobby governments for special treatment.

[Clopin]

oh, ya'll are full of it.
Each and everyone of us wear clothes, eat food, own products that were manufactured and produced by folks working for pay and under conditions we wouldn't dream of doing ourselves. Hypocrites, we're all hypocrites!
Neither Free Trade, or Protectionist policies work very well... the real problem is with these huge multinational corporations and how they lobby governments for special treatment.

But that's exactly what I said isn't it? That people will tacitly accept very unsavoury business practices if they don't ever have to engage with that element directly. That's why I cast my ballot for protectionism instead of unbridled capitalism. I am usually in favour of capitalist/free market solutions because I think the principles tend to line up with human nature anyway and that in turn leads to lead to less fuss and complications, sort of an occam's principle of economics anyway; you would have to be both heartless and insane, though, to not notice that what human beings naturally want to do is not necessarily what is going to be best for even their own communities.

[Pompey Bum]

Likewise my comment about empire.

But hey, who knew Iain read us?

Bounty, answer the damned question already (and leave one of your own) before this degenerates.

[Iain Sparrow]

But that's exactly what I said isn't it? That people will tacitly accept very unsavoury business practices if they don't ever have to engage with that element directly. That's why I cast my ballot for protectionism instead of unbridled capitalism. I am usually in favour of capitalist/free market solutions because I think the principles tend to line up with human nature anyway and that in turn leads to lead to less fuss and complications, sort of an occams principle of economics anyway; you would have to be both heartless and insane, though, to not notice that what human beings naturally want to do is not necessarily what is going to be best for even their own communities.

And I mostly agree with you.
Where the rubber meets the road, the actual people in foreign lands who produce the goods we buy... if we had to spend just one week trading lives with them; I would hope that most of us would change the way we think about globalization. It's all very remote. That is of course the nice part of me, the person who feels empathy and would want the wealthy to be less wealthy, and the poor to be less poor. Personally, I believe billionaires are obscene... but I also think that some poor people deserve to be poor. I live in a big metropolitan city with plenty of folks living at or below the poverty level... and I don't care, really, I don't care. Some are mentally ill, whether by birth or self-inflicted, some are impoverished in every way a person can be impoverished; of spirit, of conscience, of shame. Screw'em. And that's the other part of me, the one that lives in a Darwinian universe. Unfortunately we're all interconnected, and a large percentage of the population living in poverty does nobody any good.

[Pompey Bum]

Interesting topic, Iain. Let's start a separate thread about it.

Onion rings or French fries?

[Clopin]

Keep in mind it isn't the sweatshops that are causing misery, if they all closed down the people working in them wouldn't all of a sudden find well paying jobs somewhere.