Let the Dodos Die and Tariffs with them
In light of the ongoing trade war, here are some insights on the tariffs and protectionism in general.
The irrelevance of obsolescence
The defense of Trump’s tariffs is supposedly to prevent jobs going overseas. But the cause of job obsolescence is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter if jobs are going due to mechanization, AI, foreign competition, or changing consumer preferences. The end result is that maintaining these jobs wastes valuable resources that could be better allocated elsewhere. A steelworker or taxi driver whose job is no longer economically viable is no different to a switchboard operator, a bowling alley pin-setter, or a human alarm clock.
The incoherence of protectionism
The gains from your job are not the hours at the office, but the goods and services you can buy with the money you earn. Would you rather work for free, or would you rather get everything you want for free? Obviously, the latter. Exports are the price we pay for imports – they are our labor. Imports are our consumption – the goods we want and enjoy. Ideally, we would sit back and relax while the rest of world works for us. Protectionism, conversely, tells us to work like dogs for the rest of the world without ever enjoying the fruits of our labor. If we wanted a nationalist policy to prevent other countries from becoming wealthy, it would make more sense to tax exports, so others are unable to enjoy our products, while keeping imports flowing, so we can benefit from their hard work. Tariffs are totally counterproductive to their stated purpose. As Henry George said “What protectionism teaches us, is to do to ourselves in time of peace what enemies seek to do to us in time of war.”
The indifference of this observer
Protectionists are obsessed with the blue-collar worker. We constantly hear the sob story of the poor steelworker or autoworker who might lose his job and may even have to move – heaven forbid! I, for one, am tired of hearing of the plight of the poor beleaguered blue-collar worker. People immigrate with nothing, leaving their families behind, living six to a room while working minimum-wage jobs with no benefits, but the real victims are unionized workers who have been hurting consumers for years and think they’re entitled to an overpaid job-for-life in the ugly Midwestern town where they were born. Cry me a river! Millions of people lose their jobs and have to move every year – I’ve done both more times than I can count. But the tough American regular Joe who works with his hands and goes to the bar after a hard day of manual labor can’t handle the job market or moving to a better state and needs Daddy Trump’s protection. Someone get me the world’s smallest violin!