Is Free Trade Always The Best Course?
“Adam Smith: “In every country it always is and must be the interest of the great body of the people to buy whatever they want of those who sell it cheapest.”
So saving a penny by purchasing a cheaper imported product and causing your neighbor to become unemployed necessitating you to either subsidize his existence at a cost greater than your savings or watch him starve to death reducing your ability to protect your nation is in your own best interest?
Let’s assume a very expensive complicated product with many inputs of labor. A jumbo jet, a fighter jet, or a locomotive engine.
Naturally there are limited buyers of this product. A few airlines, the Us Government, a few Railroads.
Domestic Company A produces this product and offers it for a price of $X.01
Foreign Company B produces the product and offers it for $X.
Following Adam Smith’s,” it is in our own self-interest as individuals to buy whatever we want from those who sell it cheapest.” Airlines, A-Z, Purchase the import from Country B, Railroads A-Z, purchase the import From Country B. The Us Government purchases the import from Country B.
Do you see the problem or must I continue…?
So, 100 Jumbo Jets are imported and the domestic builder goes out of business or cuts back production and 1,000 employees are fired. The savings of $1, put 1,000 aerospace workers out of work and the domestic country was encumbered with the cost. Economic and Social…
Do I need to go further,.
