Essay: The Protectionist Temptation

There are two basic visions of it. Protectionism, in the free trader's eyes: When an economy gets sick, it wants to withdraw from the world. A protectionist psychosis sets in. The invalid retreats into the house and locks the doors and windows and pulls the shades. Hypochondriac, jittery, paranoid, the economic system settles down to feed upon its own inadequacies. It sits in its slippers by the cold furnace and thinks about how well it used to make things, long ago. It disconsolately guzzles Old Smoot-Hawley, far into the night. Then it passes...

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