Comments on: These are conditional virtues

By: Harry Jones

Harry Jones — Fri, 23 Oct 2020 18:54:44 +0000

Taiwan imports an awful lot of its food. Even seafood. And their young people are looking for jobs elsewhere.

Self sufficiency collapses when the population density exceeds the land’s carrying capacity. It’s a lighter version of the Malthusian trap.

By: Wang Wei Lin

Wang Wei Lin — Fri, 23 Oct 2020 01:32:06 +0000

Taiwan is a great recent example of economic success principles. When the Chinese Nationalists fled to Taiwan they built a ‘modern’ economy from scratch by observing two basic fundamentals. A nation should be able to feed itself and make things whether you trade with the world or not. While the US can still feed itself the ability to manufacture all essentials is questionable.

By: Bomag

Bomag — Thu, 22 Oct 2020 17:23:56 +0000

I’ve found hypocrisy plenty heavy among libertarians: “we need a strong, authoritarian central gov’t to implement our free market solutions; those not approving will get camps or beatings until moral improves.”

Academic libertarian economists like Caplan are the worst, lecturing us from positions maintained by gov’t fiat and subsidy with scant input from markets.

They’ll even throw math equations at us where they’ve found values that make everything work out! That other numbers exist seems to escape them, including the recently discovered concepts of zero and negative numbers.

By: Harry Jones

Harry Jones — Thu, 22 Oct 2020 16:26:33 +0000

I’m inclined to be more forgiving of Caplan. He’s just saying out loud things I’ve thought in my darker moments.

Except I don’t really believe in comparative advantage as much as he seems to. And I’ve mostly outgrown my puritan tendencies.

By: Albion

Albion — Thu, 22 Oct 2020 15:11:29 +0000

I may be missing something but I don’t think I have read anything in a long while where the author is so full of himself. A puritan who argues with himself? Mankind won’t be rational, though he has already pretty much suggested he is? “I tenaciously act on it” he praises himself. Goodness, such a saint.

I am beginning to think I don’t like Mr Caplan much.

By: Szopen

Szopen — Thu, 22 Oct 2020 12:30:56 +0000

Yeah! Absolutely! The best possible example is specialisation of 16-17th century Poland in the grain production, where every domestic industry was destroyed, because everything could be cheaply imported from Netherlands. It did us so much good in the long run!

By: McChuck

McChuck — Thu, 22 Oct 2020 11:53:24 +0000

“Comparative advantage” has been thoroughly debunked for over a century. If a country makes nothing, it can afford nothing. People need useful jobs to make an economy work. Import duties work.