Masking Parasitism Doesn’t Make It Productive

(Don Boudreaux)

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Here’s a letter to Wells King, Research Director for American Compass, which is the new organization founded by Oren Cass:

Mr. King:

Interviewed at National Review by Daniel Tenreiro, you rightly observe that, for workers who lose particular jobs to imports, “[i]t is incredibly demeaning and demoralizing to suggest that a check in the mail [from the government] is an appropriate response.” Living at the compelled expense of others is indeed contemptible.

But your preferred alternative, protectionism, is equally demeaning and contemptible. Workers whose jobs exist only because of high tariffs – which are punitive taxes on fellow citizens who buy imports – are not productive members of society. This reality is shown by the fact that fellow citizens must be taxed to support these jobs no less than fellow citizens would be taxed to supply funds for unemployment checks.

The fact that jobs that exist only because of punitive taxes called “tariffs” appear to be ones at which workers are productive members of society does not change the underlying reality that these jobs unnecessarily waste valuable, scarce resources – including labor – and, thus, workers who hold these jobs are parasitical rather than productive.

Sincerely,

Donald J. Boudreaux

Professor of Economics

and

Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center

George Mason University

Fairfax, VA 22030