It's hard to believe we're still debating free trade

gists like Alfred Kinsey. When we export, we put for cancer here?"
J0r{N R08S0N
I gcr,."'is it possible rhat in plot.
ffi the Year of Our Lord But I thought after rgBB, with effort and expense. lfwe
l- Izoog we should find with the clearly enormous could import indefinitely
ourselves debating protec- benefits of free trade, such without having to pay
iionism? It is a central views had retreated to the we would. Regrettablyfor it
prernise of our civilization
that free inquiry and open de-
bate will over time improve
our understanding. But ap-
parently the product may not
be exactly as shor,l.n in the ad-
vertisement,
When the U.S. Congress
threatens to apply sweeping
"Buy American" require- petition.
ments to its stimulus prikrge
we are driven to stop debat-
ing the dubious merits of cies of the r93os, aimost
stimulus packages and start
tryingto explain free trade in-
stead. From the beginaing. As
though neither logic nor ex-
perience had previously been
invoked on the subject or,
worse, had been invoked in
vain.
Back in r8r7 David Ricardo
r offered an elegant and com-
peiling proof that free trade
benefits both parties. Ir is al-
most the only thing the soeial
scrences have ever proven
with mathematical rigour and
yet it is disputed, or ridicuied,
by persons tvha accept with
comic credulity the pseudo-
scientific findings of sociolo-
Here in Canadawe have al-
ways had anti-free-traders,
and I siill get the odd scary
mailing from the Council of
Canadians about how under
NAFTA the Americans are
going to suck the Great takes
dry and biow the dust in our
faces, or some such nefarious
useful things they produced
margins. Hoo hah! Instead, as
Bill \,Vatson pointed out in
Wednesday's Citizen,the lat-
est "conservative" federal
budget includes Sr75 million
lor new Coast Guard vessels
that wili protect shipyards not
only against foreign but
against interprovincial com-
After the catasfrophic beg-
gar-thy-neighbour trade pol i -
everyone became a free trad-
er in theory. But almost no
one did in practice, partiy be- and two products," and the
cause they didn't actuallyun-
derstand the theory. politi- with "Whoa, this is way too that not only incorporates pJ.
cians and citizens alike gener- complicated." I stifled any O'Rourke's
ally remain convincel that grade-imperilling retort rance is a renewable"re-
exports are good and imports
are bad, and free trade means
getting foreigners to buy our
exports by agreeing to endure
their imports. But this analy-
sis is backwards, and makes
those who succumb to it vul-
nerable to bqruts of panicky
prctectionism at bad mo-
Inents.
In truth the only reason we
export is to pay for imports.
labour and material into In case Democrats in Con-
things then give them to for- gress think the answer is yes,
eigners in return for bits oflet me try to catch them in
coloured paper with dead their own failacy by asking
politicians on them. When simply: Why shouid ioreign-
we import, by contrast, we ers buy American goods if
give bits of coloured paper Americans won't buy theirs?
with deadpoliticians on them Oh, you hadn't thought of
to foreigners in return for that. Hadn t thought, period.
That the United States
might be about to trigger
catastrophic bout of protec-
a
tionism is certainly alarming
we enough for one day. But that
can't. But in an economic it is happening in zoog leads
emergency we might try tem- me to clip this passage from
porarily t0 stop sending use-
|ohn Stuart Mill's On Liberv
ful things out ofthe counrry ... and burn it: "as mankini
whiLe continuing to bring improve, the number of doc-
them in; we certainly shouid-
trines which are no longer
n't want to do the reverse. disputed or doubted wilibe
I won't repeat Ricardo's ar-
constantly on the increase:
gument here, partly because and the well-being of
in graduate school I once mankind may almost be mea-
iried to cornbat a piece of
sured by the number and
dopey protectionism by in- gravity of the truths which
voking it, and when no one have reached the point ofbe-
had heard of it I begaa,',Sup- ing uncontested." As
pose you have two countries mankind improve? We ap-
pear to need a far bleaker
professor interrupted me conception of history, one
maxim that',imo,
about the complexity of two source" but admits that larse
plus twq and learned instead
to cite economist Arthur Laf-
fer's illustration of the foilv of
numbers of superficially i-n-
teiligent and weli-meaning
peopie seem strangely bus|
protectionism: "Say we'in- actively renewing it.
vented a cure for polio and
If you don't agree, tell me,
Japan invented a cure for can- please, how we can even be
cer. True to form, they pre-
discussing protectionism in
vented us from selling our the Year ofGood Griefzoog.
cure in their country. Should
we get even? Should we stop John Robson's column appears
them from selling their cur-e weekly.

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