Since Trump brought up tariffs, there has been much "conversations" by Libertarians and anarchists and capitalists…
Of course, the idea, and ideal of the free market" was brought into this.
And well, i was looking at things from a pragmatic standpoint.
The free market only works if it is all free
If we all had free markets, all over the world, then we could just let the market work things out.
But it is not free, much not free.
And the playing field is anything but level.
We have to use T.H.E.Y. money. T.H.E.Y. get for almost free, and we have to pay dearly for it. T.H.E.Y. can arbitrarily set its price, causing booms and busts. So, until the money is free, then the free market doesn't exist, when half the transaction is controlled/manipulated.
Minimum amounts to live are different all over. So, labor in China was cheaper, because their housing was cheaper. And so it goes with many 3rd world sweat shops. (they are sweat shops because the workers would rather have more money, than to pay for AC) This makes the market completely unbalanced.
A person with 10x the wealth as another is on a completely different level. This is the difference between the poor and the middle class in America. And another 10x to the Lower upper class, and 10x to the Upper upper class. It is probably 10x to a 3rd world income. I am unsure if it is 10x, but it is a scale difference, a integer shift, a different level. And it exists where ever there is any kind of market. It is what i have seen when trying to understand the difference between a poor person and a broke person (rich person who is out of money) The rich thinking person will be rich once again given time and opportunity. The poor person will be poor, even after winning the lottery. If capital makes the rules, then people will be stratified.
Different groups of people have different work ethics and different savings ethics. If you have one group, who all work 50 hours a week, and another who barely put in 20 hours a week, then the 50 hour a week group will have more income. Similarly to groups who save their excess vs. those who blow their excess. One group becomes quite wealthy, and the other group becomes quite poor. It is almost impossible to balance trade, when you have two such disparate groups.
And then you add things like location vs. shipping, or location vs. mineral deposits, or location vs. factory base, and you get that things could never be balanced. So, can a free market, around the world actually exist?
Well, if it was all free, house prices would balance out world wide. And labor would move around world wide, until it was all balanced. But, if we just went all free, it would be a chaotic time and lot of hardship would entail.
Are Tariffs an answer?
We have many arguments of tariffs being used to protect local industry. Conversely, we have arguments that tariffs make your local industry fat and bloated.
We have arguments where tariffs should be used to balance trade. Back when we swapped gold to balance trade imbalances, it was actually quite important to the money men to balance the trade. But, today, if you could manufacture lots of stuff for cheap, and then get everyone else to give you all their money, wouldn't you do that? Why have balance when you can take advantage?
We have arguments to be used as punishment for bad trading partners. So, that group that used their cheap labor to flood the market with cheap manufactured good, should have more tariffs placed upon them. And i suppose you could reward a trading partner for being good by lowering tariffs, but zero is usually as low as you can go.
But, all in all, tariffs are just taxes that the end consumer has to pay. And so, it is just another way to tax your people. However, a tax is a way to dis-incentivize certain purchases. And so can be used to shape consumer purchases.
Cheap goods vs Printed paper
After the BrentenWoods System, The US lowered tariffs. Why? Because they were exporting cheap dollars. Sure, China today is exporting cheap manufactured goods, but The US is exporting even cheaper dollars (and their inflation).
So, we must take that into account when talking tariffs.
Of course, the American factory worker really got abused by this. And the ones who made out where the banksters printing tons of dollars. So, was this the wrong thing to do? Or was it inevitable after non-backed, debt based, fiat currency was brought into existence?
With almost all countries using a non-backed, debt based, fiat currency can we even talk about fair trade? Or ways to balance trade?
We literally have goods on one side being traded for paper. What a bad trade.
But, if you have excess man-power, then you can make cheap goods and sell it anyone who will buy.
And, if you go to any tourist trap, this is exactly what you find. People trading their spare time for money from the "richer" tourists.
If everything is traded for "that" paper, and you do no have any paper, you are in a very poor position.
Maybe it isn't the cheap goods that should have a tariff placed on them, it is the printed paper?
The free-market people have no argument in this situation, because there is nothing like a free market at this point in time.
The protectionist people have only a half an argument, because, who are you going to protect? The factory worker, or the banksters? Of course, the factory worker will be screwed which ever side is chosen.
There is the argument that Trump is going to use Tariffs to affect negotiations with other countries. (Probably a lot better than sanctions, maybe?) Sure, they can be a valuable bargaining tool, but will they actually have any positive effect?
Sure, we can stop paying income tax, and switch to tariffs, but this is just switching which way you want to be taxed. We could also switch to a national sales tax, its the same thing, sorta.
With our current sorta-free-market and bankster-money and extreme different income levels, there is no good path with using tariffs. There are only extreme trade-offs.
And this could be made much worse if say, the banksters build completely automated cheap goods manufacturing plants in The US. So, then, we Americans would have the worst of both ends of the trade. We would need to Tariff ourselves.
Fortunately, sound money (like bitcoin) and local manufacturing (3D printers++) will destroy the entire structure. And then we could talk about actual tariffs. But, more likely, we will have small communities acting like tiny nation-states and negotiating terms of trade, as well as trade with other communities all over the world.