Saturday, February 9, 2008

Adam Smith quote of the day

Were the Americans, either by combination or by any other sort of violence, to stop the importation of European manufactures, and, by thus giving a monopoly to such of their own countrymen as could manufacture the like goods, divert any considerable part of their capital into this employment, they would retard instead of accelerating the further increase in the value of their annual produce, and would obstruct instead of promoting the progress of their country towards real wealth and greatness.


via Ha-Joon Chang's Power Point Presentation

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It looks like Smith was wrong on this one. The U.S. had incredibly high tariffs on imported manufactured goods in the 19th century, but still managed to eke out a bit of growth. I remember Kipling foaming at the mouth about this.