Protectionism - why not?

[MrMark]

Time to defect to the pub thread methinks

[BrilloPad]

As small amount of protectionism is not only a good thing but also a sensible one

Its okay if just us doing it and everyone else has free trade.....

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Cobblers. Some might, but only a small minority. It has done an immense amount of damage, especially now at a time of recession. In any case many workers are still paid less than the minimum wage by virtue of being 'self-employed'. Thus, these people, mainly immigrant workers, have been putting indigenous folk out of work. It's been a disaster !!

Where is the official Tory policy to repeal it then you thick Tory automaton?

"Mr Letwin replied that he had been responsible for changing Conservative policy on the minimum wage “because we were wrong about it. It turned out not to price people out of jobs the way we thought it would. The reason we were sceptical about it is because we thought it would price people out of jobs"

[Bagpuss]

The factories and coal miners will get complacent and lazy (typical British working-class traits)

Whereas your productivity largely revolves around posting on CUK I fail to see how that is adding to the wealth of this country.

[xoggoth]

I wouldn't say unqualified protectionism. It makes some sense to concentrate on our strengths and buy from abroad those goods/services they do best.

What we should be doing is having proper negotiated trade agreements on a country by country basis not global treaties. Unfortunately, globalism has become a religion and we go along with measures when there is no benefit to us. How is handing China effective control of the US economy via huge debt a good thing for the US economy? Developing/third world countries insist on their own controls to protect their citizens from exploitation, the global trade agreements are not reciprocal.

In the short term it may appear to benefit us to take advantage of cheap Labour in India or China say but unfortunately they are very bright. When we use their labour we are handing them the expertise to take our whole industries. We used Indians a lot in aircraft. I will give it twenty years max before they are rivalling the likes of Boeing or British Aerospace with their own factories.

[Gonzo]

How is handing China effective control of the US economy via huge debt a good thing for the US economy?

That is a slightly different issue. If the USA wants to borrow from the future to fund its current standard of living then that is their look-out.

There were plenty of farm-labouring jobs to go around in the UK before machines were introduced to make food production more efficient and cheaper - a lot of people did not like it at the time but there can't be many people in the UK now who would want to go back to that way of life.

I don't see globalisation as being any different from that.

[expat]

Anyone remember the Prisoner's Dilemma?

1. Nobody does protectionism: good for everybody.
2. We do protectionism but nobody else does: great for us, not as good as no. 1 for everybody else.
3. Everybody does protectionism: not as good as no. 1 for everybody. Way less good than no. 2 for us; better than no. 2 for the others.

So we'd like to do no.1 but only if everybody does. But we don't trust them so we go for no.2 instead. So does everybody else. Result: everybody gets no.3, the worst result.

[IR35 Avoider]

I want to disagree that we should have kept manufacturing. Manufactured goods have to be competitive on a global market, therefore to the extent they use labour as an input you would be expecting British workers to compete with people who are willing to work for a pound a month. (Or something like that.)

On the other hand, cleaners, gardeners, child-minders, teachers, nurses, doctors, hairdressers, prostitutes etc. only have to compete with the price of labour in their own part of Britain, so can earn far more.

The answer is not to re-introduce manufacturing, but to reduce the barriers that prevent more people working in service industries.

Ideally I would like to see targeted benefits and the tax personal allowance eliminated for almost everyone, and replaced with a tiny benefit that you get regardless of what you do with your life.

There would be no disincentive to work, because you don't lose any benefit by working.

This would also replace the incentive the current benefits system gives families to split up with an incentive for people to live together, as living together would make no difference to the benefits received but create huge savings in living costs.

[The Lone Gunman]

I want to disagree that we should have kept manufacturing. Manufactured goods have to be competitive on a global market, therefore to the extent they use labour as an input you would be expecting British workers to compete with people who are willing to work for a pound a month. (Or something like that.)

On the other hand, cleaners, gardeners, child-minders, teachers, nurses, doctors, hairdressers, prostitutes etc. only have to compete with the price of labour in their own part of Britain, so can earn far more.

The answer is not to re-introduce manufacturing, but to reduce the barriers that prevent more people working in service industries.

None of the jobs you mention actualy create wealth, they are all services to persons with wealth.
The problem is that manufacturing has pretty much gone so there is no wealth generation there. The service sector has some wealth generation businesses but more and more of those are being offshored too.
There are very few industries these days that can not be done just as easily in India as here except those which are customer facing, but who will be the customer if the wealth generators are out of work?