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26 Sep 2009 12:47 pm
An Anti-Protectionist Parable
Lexington sketches out the folly of tariffs:
If tariffs are such a good economic idea, then why stop at national
boundaries? If they make everyone richer, why not have customs posts
between New York and New Jersey? Cars entering and leaving the Lincoln
tunnel would have to pay, on top of the toll, a surcharge on all the
goods they contain. Why not, indeed, make New York and New Jersey
self-sufficient in all their needs, making all their own cars, growing
all their own food etc?
Let us imagine that such a scheme was
proposed by a future Governor Paterson or Corzine, as a wizard wheeze
for boosting tax revenues. Is it just possible that such a system
would discourage trade between the two states, raise costs to
consumers, result in massive inefficiencies etc etc?
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