International trade routes revealed comparative advantages of the different shippers, whether New England or British. Merchants dealt with shippers with whom they had a history. Knowing market conditions was easier for local merchants. Crews were paid less in their home ports.
If capitalism is self-destroying, as he says it is, if socialism leads to the servile state, and if the distributive state as a practical matter is not feasible, then we have but one choice; and that is a choice between serfdom and death.
The World Economic Conference of 1933 met to deal with America's Great Depression, but, without consulting anyone, FDR declared that the U.S. would not agree to the proposal because he wanted to take the U.S. off the gold standard in order to inflate the dollar. The gold-supporting British and French were horrified; Nazi Germany was delighted.
We are witnessing a great tragedy: more and more people being driven by indignation about the suppression of political and intellectual freedom joi
Finally, this view, based only on the doctrines of one obscure and heterodox scholastic, was enshrined in conventional histories of economic thought, where it was seconded by the free market but fanatically anti-Catholic economist Frank Knight and his followers in the now highly influential Chicago School.
The weakness of a benevolent despotism is that there is no guarantee that it will remain benevolent. The Social Welfare State, the modern liberals' goal, is essentially a Germanic concept.
As champions of liberty, Paine and Bastiat threw the covers off the fallacies and institutions that stood in the way of its realization. Both writers bequeathed to us arsenals of intellectual ammunition that will always be deadly to statism.
In general, moreover, Keynesian proposals for "compensatory" policies follow Marxian socialism in seeking to force individuals to obey the rule, "From everyone according to his abilities, to everyone according to his needs." Arguments and theories used to support these proposals are essentially Marxian.
"Just as serious as the economic disruption are the social consequences of inflation."
In the real world, erecting higher trade barriers will reduce economic output in both countries, whereas reducing trade barriers will lead to greater output.
