TANSTAAFL. Every action taken has costs, and sometimes those costs are borne by those who had no say in the matter (“negative externalities” to use the technical term). The existence of externalities is often used to justify government involvement in markets (pollution tends to be the common example). Lately, however, protectionists scarcityists have begun using that argument to promote their policies, noting job loss as an externality. Some, more generally, claim “practical people not tied to free trade dogma understand that trade sometimes is good and that it’s bad other times.”
It certainly is possible that, any given transaction, may have enough unforeseen negative consequences as to have negative net benefits. However, the bar needed to justify government action is high:
From a purely economic perspective*, protectionists have two tasks before them:
1) Prove that imports cause greater net harm than domestic production
and
2) Prove the proposed solution
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