[lbo-talk] Free trade costs thousands of jobs...

[Grant Lee]

Apart from the other downsides of protectionism, some of the most striking
examples of capitalist economic development --- e.g. Switzerland, Belgium,
Hong Kong and Singapore --- have occurred under export-oriented, minimal
tariff regimes. Australia has experienced average annual growth in the
region of 3% for about 10 years, now, after abandoning a high tariff regime
in the 1980s.

In fact, given the diminutive internal markets in such cases, (relative)
"free trade" was the only kind of policy framework which was likely to
result in successful capitalist development.