Emil O W Kirkegaard

My skepticism towards non-empirical economics is ~100%, but it's also high for historical cases/reviews. Easy to cherry-pick.

I don't see the connection. The history of US trade seems more clear cut. There's a record of tariffs and statements about them.

Point is not about US history, but arguing from case studies of history to infer that protectionism is or is not bad.

That wasn't the main point of the essay, as I saw it. The main point was that it was widely thought of as good by US elites b4 mid-20th C.

That, in and of itself, doesn't mean it's a good policy now, but Fletcher's point there was that many today are ignorant of the history.

And he's right about that. I recall an op/ed column in the @FT last year criticizing Trump that asked what Lincoln would think of his views.

The review doesn't really include the "what should replace it, and why?" part. Which I think is the most interesting.

The alleged "assumptions" are mostly straw men. Noone thinks there are no positive externalities, for example.

They just think that plan economy alternatives are worse most of the time.

You can apply the same arguments against free markets within countries basically. It's true that they don't get the optimal outcome.

But in most cases, plan economies do worse.

If only someone invented a way to write longer texts than Twitter. Maybe we should call it an internet log, or maybe web log, blog for short

He is not arguing for planned economy or against capitalism, silly. He is arguing against free trade.

Same thing. Free trade is what the market does if governments don't interfere. He wants the government to plan a way to interfere.