Protectionism

[1911]  Roberto Michels,  La sociologia del partito politico nella democrazia moderna [Zur Soziologie des Parteiwesens in der modernen Demokratie], il Mulino, Bologna, 1966

-  "[Sui giornali socialisti si poteva leggere che] 'i conservatori inglesi assicurano che in nessun paese del mondo va così male per i lavoratori come in Inghilterra.' Ciò naturalmente con lo scopo di convincere gli elettori che era loro interesse rifiutare l'odiato principio del libero commercio e aderire a un programma di protezionismo doganale." (pp. 31-32)

[1935]  Albert Jay Nock,  Our Enemy, the State, Hallberg Publishing Corporation, Tampa, Florida, 2001

-  "We all now know pretty well, that the primary reason for a tariff is that it enables the exploitation of the domestic consumer by a process indistinguishable from sheer robbery." (p. 97)

[1949]  Benjamin M. Anderson,  Economics and the Public Welfare. A financial and economic history of the United States 1914-1946, Liberty Press, Indianapolis, 1979

-  "... the tariffs were raised [in the USA], first by an agricultural tariffs bill in 1921 ... and, second, by the Fordney bill of 1922, which raised rates sharply on a wide range of manufactured goods, the kind of goods we ought to have been importing from Europe." (p. 102)

-  "But the great harm came from the Fordney bill of 1922. This imposed a grave barrier against European industrial revival, and it imposed a deadly handicap on the export trade of the American farmer whose market was primarily in Europe - an export trade which amounted to sixty percent of the cotton produced, forty percent of the lard, more than twenty percent of the wheat, forty percent of the tobacco. The seeds of death were introduced into our industrial revival when this tariff bill was passed." (p. 103)

-  "Our tariffs would not allow the Europeans to earn dollars here in adequate amounts to buy out farm products and to meet services on the past debts, so we proceeded to lend them the dollars they needed for these purposes! But we did not consider how they would ever repay the sums we were lending them if they could not sell goods here. We would take care of that by new loans next year! There was an immense quickening of European demand for American exports and, above all, for farm products at rapidly rising prices." "... the policy of cheap money and excessive foreign loans was to continue long enough to keep American agriculture prosperous and to keep the country prosperous over five years, and to pile up an accumulation of uncollectible foreign debts which shook the country and the world to their foundations when the day of reckoning came." (p. 128)

-  "But there came another folly of governmental intervention in 1930 transcending all the rest in its significance and in its baleful consequences. In a world staggering under a load of international debt which could be carried only if countries under pressure could produce goods and export them to their creditors, we, the great creditor nation of the world, with tariffs already far too high, raised our tariffs again. The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act of June 1930 was the crowning financial folly of the whole period from 1920 to 1933." (p. 229)

-  "But once we raised our tariffs, an irresistible movement all over the world to raise tariffs and to erect other trade barriers, including quotas, began. Protectionism ran wild over the world. Markets were cut off. Trade lines were narrowed. Unemployment in the export industries all over the world grew with great rapidity, and the prices of export commodities, notably farm commodities, in the United States, dropped with ominous rapidity." (p. 229)

[1965]  Estes Kefauver,  In a Few Hands. Monopoly power in America, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1966

-  "Our historical economic literature abounds with references to 'the tariff as the mother of trusts'." "Professor Machlup remarked that if automobile prices appear too high in this country, there is a simple remedy - get rid of the duties. Faced with vigorous competition from abroad, the domestic industry would have to abandon its current emphasis on styling and other non-price forms of competition; it would be forced to plunge into price competition. When a protest was made that a reduction in tariff barriers would put high cost producers out of business and create unemployment, Professor Machlup rejoined that stagecoaches - once the center of a thriving industry - have long since perished." (p. 240)

[1980]  Milton Friedman and Rose Friedman,  Free to Choose, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1983

-  "The gains to some producers from tariffs and other restrictions are more than offset by the loss to other producers and especially to consumers in general. Free trade would not only promote our material welfare, it would also foster peace and harmony among nations and spur domestic competition." (p. 60)

-  "Few measures that we could take would do more to promote the cause of freedom at home and abroad than complete free trade. Instead of making grants to foreign governments in the name of economic aid while at the same time imposing restrictions on the products they produce, we could assume a consistent and principled stance. We could say to the rest of the world : we believe in freedom and intend to practice it. Our market is open to you without tariffs or other restrictions. Sell here what you can and wish to. Buy whatever you can and wish to. In that way cooperation among individuals can be worldwide and free." (p. 73)

-  "The infant industry argument [to justify protectionism] is a smoke screen. The so-called infants never grow up. Once imposed, tariffs are seldom eliminated. Moreover, the argument is seldom used on behalf of true unborn infants that might conceivably be born and survive if given temporary protection. They have no spokesmen. It is used to justify tariffs for rather aged infants that can mount political pressure." (pp. 71-72)

-  "In the modern world, tariffs and similar restrictions on trade have been one source of friction among nations. But a far more troublesome source has been the far-reaching intervention of the state into the economy in such collectivist states as Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy, and Franco's Spain, and especially the communist countries, from Russia and its satellites to China." (p. 75)