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Maybe I am wrong, but I can't think a lot of examples of free trade improving a country. By free trade I mean international trade without restrictions. The mo

Maybe I am wrong, but I can't think a lot of examples of free trade improving a country. By free trade I mean international trade without restrictions. The modern examples like Japan, South Korea, China etc are very planned economies that protected their industrial base until it was fully developed. If this observation is right, an interesting question would be: why "a super-majority of economists" says otherwise?.

dnautics 11y ago
You can't think of one because "it hasn't happened". You can construct your definition of free trade to be restrictive enough that no countries fit the bill and it looks like evidence that the proposition is untrue (I'm not necessarily arguing that it is true). Furthermore there is broken windows here, you don't know how those economies would have done if they were freer.
- RobertoG 11y ago
  Sure, but we can compare countries where there was more protection of their own industrial base with countries where there was less. Surely we can get some conclusions there. The path that is normally recommended to the "developing countries" doesn't match the path that the industrial powers followed. If you wanted that Bangladesh developed an industrial base you would do well in advise them to develop and industrial base and some internal market. That takes time and takes some kind of protection.
  - dnautics 11y ago
    > The path that is normally recommended to the "developing countries" doesn't match the path that the industrial powers followed. Yeah, well, would you rather we recommend Bangladesh adopt a US-like "path forward" including 150 years of chattel slavery, a bloody civil war that more than decimated the population, and nuking a rival world power at the end of a 4-year global conflict?
    - RobertoG 11y ago
      I don't follow you there, do you mean that the US is a developed country because slavery and the civil war? Anyway, why not a Japanese or South Korean path forward? or Chinese?
nickbauman 11y ago
All first world economies are highly planned.
- AnimalMuppet 11y ago
  [citation needed] That is, if you actually want to convince anyone, you're going to have to do more than simply asserting that it's true.

dnautics 11y ago

You can't think of one because "it hasn't happened". You can construct your definition of free trade to be restrictive enough that no countries fit the bill and it looks like evidence that the proposition is untrue (I'm not necessarily arguing that it is true). Furthermore there is broken windows here, you don't know how those economies would have done if they were freer.

RobertoG 11y ago
Sure, but we can compare countries where there was more protection of their own industrial base with countries where there was less. Surely we can get some conclusions there. The path that is normally recommended to the "developing countries" doesn't match the path that the industrial powers followed. If you wanted that Bangladesh developed an industrial base you would do well in advise them to develop and industrial base and some internal market. That takes time and takes some kind of protection.
- dnautics 11y ago
  > The path that is normally recommended to the "developing countries" doesn't match the path that the industrial powers followed. Yeah, well, would you rather we recommend Bangladesh adopt a US-like "path forward" including 150 years of chattel slavery, a bloody civil war that more than decimated the population, and nuking a rival world power at the end of a 4-year global conflict?
  - RobertoG 11y ago
    I don't follow you there, do you mean that the US is a developed country because slavery and the civil war? Anyway, why not a Japanese or South Korean path forward? or Chinese?

nickbauman 11y ago

All first world economies are highly planned.

AnimalMuppet 11y ago
[citation needed] That is, if you actually want to convince anyone, you're going to have to do more than simply asserting that it's true.