Because the Enervation of the US Government and Economic illiterate interventionism is burning trade wars and dreams of Autarkie, it is worth looking at the long historical experience of economic isolation that began under the late Chinese emperors at the time of our high and late Middle Ages. Three books help us understand the world in that respect.
The Autarky episode is summarized in Water Schiedel, Escape from Rome: the failure of the empire and the road to prosperity (Princeton University Press, 2019, pp. 400 EV Regulation Under the title “Let’s travel that road again(Spring 2020). Schiedel wrote:
In the late fourteenth century, the [Ming] The founder of Dynasty, the Hongwu -Keizer, started with ambitious antimarket reforms that tried to restore autarkic village economies …
The [previous] Mongolian [1271-1368] Regime first set up a state monopoly in the field of abroad and then forbade private traders to deal with foreign parties. The Ming followed the example: in the late fourteenth century the coast residents were forbidden to venture abroad. Only “tribute missions” run by the state were allowed to do this. Further prohibitions of private maritime trade were published in the fifteenth century and sometimes even extended to coastal preservation.
It is interesting here to open a hooks and to think about the fact that in the United States the coastal shipment since the 1920 Jones Act is limited to American flag behavior, ships built by American and by American, which have significantly increased the shipping costs and have made American maritime shipping (and shipping) strong (and shipping) A void competitor of his equivalent in contemporary China, South Korea and Japan. (To see Colin Gabow’s work.)
Schiedel continues with Chinese Autarkie and economic isolationism The development of the country Until the late 20th century:
At various points in the sixteenth century, the [Chinese imperial] The government forbade the construction and operation of the Pacific Ocean ships and authorized coastal authorities to destroy such ships and to arrest all traders on it. …
Guangzhou was designated as the only legitimate port for foreign trade in 1757. …
Bans did not stop trade, but it was delayed, in particular from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, when European foreign trade began its great expansion. But even if state fiats could not hope to terminate private companies, created antagonism between the authorities and traders, the government of income rains, limit the size of the exchange and promotes corruption. The criminalization of commercial activities imposed extra costs because sellers were forced to avoid detection and to buy bribery agents to close a crush.
The experience of Chinese Autarkie must be compared to the openness for trade and with new ideas and products that at the time characterized many Western countries or city states. Another important book in that respect is that of Joel Mokyr A culture of growth: the origin of the modern economy (Princeton University Press, 2017), which I have assessed Regulation Under the title “From the Republic of Letters to the Great Enrichment. “Mokyr writes (p. 315):
The importance of the lighting for the subsequent economic development of Europe goes beyond its impact on the exploitation of useful knowledge for material progress, the essence of industrial lighting. It also codified and formalized the type of institutions every society needed to maintain its technological momentum: the rule of law, controls and balances on the executive, and serious sanctions on more flagrant and harmful forms of rent seekers. …
After the China had discovered, the West eagerly borrowed Eastern ideas and imported goods. For example, ‘Chinaware’ was exotic and much to ask and disguised his foreign origin. On their side, the Chinese elite was not interested in ‘cultural -owning’ from the West, so the country remained insular and entangled in the past. It soon remained far behind the West in economic growth.
Finally, I have often recommended A theory of economic history (Clarendon Press, 1969) by John Hicks, who won a Nobel Prize in Economics a few years later. I think it is the most wonderful economic book I have read. It is also very relevant to understanding the benefits of exchange and international trade. (I am not far from thinking that when someone arrives at the pearl -like ports, the first question from St. Peter is: “You have read A theory of economic history? “) In one Regulation judgement (“John Hicks and the beauty of logic“Winter 2014-2015), I wrote:
A theory of economic history is a continuous celebration of exchange and its liberating power. “As long as trade is voluntary, it must give an all -round benefit,” wrote Hicks. Exchange leads to economic growth, which people generally want.
Traders and other intermediaries and financiers created modern trade and in advance the industrial revolution, also called the ‘great enrichment’. A theory of economic history Also warns against the danger of the State for Trade and Prosperity. Hicks Notes (p. 162):
The name “Mercantilist” is only suitable if we look at the other way to history, from the position of the state, from the position of the rulers. They become ‘mercantilistic’ when they start to realize that traders can be used as an instrument for their primary non-Mercantile purposes.
*****************************
Make China great: Maritime navigation forbidden