make-work (was Re: pre-Keynesian)

[Lawrence]

>>>>
Smith's prescriptions for these ills are of debatable value, and extending
them to our times is rash. Still, some things he said resonate across the
centuries. Today's globalization, whatever its benefits, has a strange way
of favoring the successors to those merchants and manufacturers who
promoted mercantilism in Smith's day. Dani Rodrik, of the John F. Kennedy
School of Government, at Harvard University, an economist who supports free
trade, nevertheless concludes in a study of a large number of nations that
"globalization reduces the ability of governments to spend resources on
social programs; it makes it more difficult to tax capital; and a growing
share of the tax burden is now carried by labor."
<<<<

His merchantalism does sound like an early version of globalization. But if
the modern era of globalization started in the 1960s, what caused it to be
suppressed for 150 years? I have the impression that merchantalism faded at
some point after Smith, and was revived in the 60s.

Also, am I correct in forming the impression that Smith had no problem with
trade per se, only the government's subsidy of it?