Free trade has its enemies on the left and the right. However, despite the supposed “sophistication” of their antitrade arguments, when we break them down, those arguments really are sophistry.
Original Article: Statism Stands against Free Trade and Free Association
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People cavil much about Ricardo’s law of association, better known under the name law of comparative cost. The reason is obvious. This law is an offense to all those eager to justify protection and national economic isolation from any point of view other than the selfish interests of some producers or the issues of war-preparedness.
—Ludwig von Mises, Human Action
Alexander Macris of the Substack blog Contemplations on the Tree of Woe has called attention to Ian Fletcher’s arguments against free trade in the little-known book Free Trade Doesn’t Work: What Should Replace It and Why. Repudiating his youth as a “doctrinaire free trader” under the sway of “Austrian economics,” when he considered free trade to be “more than just an economic belief,” Macris has left
