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Clearly, free trade can and did exist before 1992, 1957, and 1942. My point was that the initial idea behind the union (in it's various forms) was to ease the
by djschnei 10y ago
Clearly, free trade can and did exist before 1992, 1957, and 1942. My point was that the initial idea behind the union (in it's various forms) was to ease the pain felt by the existing regressive protectionism of the region. All in all, considering the relatively small size of the world (economically), this was a great idea. However, over time the union has taken on even more restrictive forms of protectionism except now the border is different. The results, predictably, are the same.
- dragonwriter 10y ago> Clearly, free trade can and did exist before 1992, 1957, and 1942. Trade did exist. Free trade less so, and a durable expectation of free trade on predictable terms (free or otherwise) even less so.
- djschnei 10y agoNot sure how I'm failing to make my point. I said post WW Europe had regressive protectionism. The initial unions did alleviate some of that. However, over time it turned into a larger version of the initial problem.
- jerven 10y agoOnly for those outside of the union... inside it was much better and getting better.