[Mariner]

From 1780 - 1942 the US was a textbook mercantile nation. During the same period Britain pursued Smithsonian Free Trade.

The result was the largest store of capital stock in the history of mankind in the US, whilst Britain’s empire collapsed.

Now China has copied that model for 40 years and the result is similar.

That’s REAL LIFE, not the mental masturbation of Austrians and Smithsonians.

[impimp]

Statement one is false - US was mercantilist from 1780 to 1942 while the UK was a free trader nation. In fact, tariffs as a percentage of total imports was very similar in the two nations and was actually much higher in the U.K. in the early 19th century.

Statement two is stupid - “Capital Stock”?!? Who cares? That is not how a nation is judged. Why not pick an equally meaningless term such as carbon emissions?

Statement three shows poor analysis - China has grown over the past 40 years due to a reduction in the government control/communism in its economy.

Statement four is crass - mental masturbator?

The truth - Over the past 200+ years we have seen a global decline in tariffs as a percentage of goods traded. During that time economies have flourished. Those countries that have dropped tariffs the most have flourished the most - US and U.K. Countries who have removed tariffs less have flourished less - France. Therefore tariff reduction is a cause of, if not it is at least highly correlated with, an increase in national power.

All of these tariff rates as a percentage of total imports may be googled.

[central_va]

Hamitic trained economists are not historians. Actually I think b-schools frown upon learning history.