The claim that protectionism serves “higher ends” rests on a confusion about both economics and the non-economic goals people actually value.

Recently on Facebook, I shared my Café Hayek post titled “Lower-Priced Goods are a Blessing, Not a Curse.” I prefaced this share with this remark: “Protectionism is the theory that 10+2=6, and 10-2=16. And protectionists proudly and tirelessly defend this theory, happy to dismiss as ‘elitists,’ ‘experts,’ or ‘globalists’ those of us who point out that 10+2=12, and that 10-2=8.”

Of course, my description of protectionism isn’t literally true. And yet it does truly capture protectionism’s essence, which is the bizarre belief that a greater abundance of goods and services made available from sources outside of a nation’s boundaries reduces the supplies of goods and services available to the people of that nation, while policies that diminish the abundance of goods and services made available from sources outside of a nation’s boundaries increase the supplies of goods and services available to the people of that nation.

Putting aside the national-security exception to the case for free trade, such an arithmetical impossibility is indeed what 90 percent of protectionism is revealed to be, when stripped of the vague and misleading language typically deployed to mask its essence. Tariffs and other protectionist interventions are sold as means of creating more and higher-paying jobs (which would, in turn, reverse the allegedly rising “cost of thriving”), of paving paths for the development of “the industries of the future,” of raising impressive amounts of tax revenue from foreigners, of making the economy more ‘competitive,’ and generally of strengthening the domestic economy, improving the living standards of ordinary citizens.

Because voters overwhelmingly like policies that promise them greater access to goods and services, protectionists understandably trumpet the alleged ability of protectionism to deliver on this economic front.

...read more at thedailyeconomy.org