Now comes my neighbor and he’s selling his lawnmower. It is a good price and he takes $25 American for it. That’s free trade. Who is richer or more powerful or anything else doesn’t matter. That trade is completed. He got what he wanted and I got what I wanted.
Does "liberty" extend to selling heroin, crack cocaine, etc to anyone who will buy them? Is that free trade? Surely you don't advocate some reversion back to a Hobbesian state of nature where government is non-existent? Government does have a role in trade, even free trade.
You’re confusing the economic prosperity of moving away from low level manufacturing to higher level manufacturing and invention.
I never mentioned manufacturing or moving from one level to another?
Would you rather be making the widget or getting all the royalties from it?
Government certainly favors the latter. It produces nothing but gets the "royalties" aka taxes from it.
We don’t farm anymore either and that’s a sign of prosperity. At the turn of the last century 40% of employment was on farms now it’s down to 3% and no one is starving. That’s an improvement. Do you see it now?
You must be confusing me with someone else on this thread. I am not against technological improvements that increase productivity and reduces labor costs.
Free trade is amoral. As a Christian I wouldn’t trade in those things. Government has a clear role in trade: keep the lanes of trade open, enforce laws against fraud, and provide a justice system with teeth.
My point about manufacturing was to contrast it with the move away from farming into manufacturing. People at the time expected starvation, but that didn’t happen. US manufacturing is alive and very, very well. It just employs fewer workers because of technological innovation and a move toward thinking rather than labor.
You say that a good idea produces nothing, but history and reality say otherwise. The person who is able to bring the house plan builds nothing. He cut no tree, nailed no wood, and installed no item in the home, but his idea and coordinating thoughts brought it all together. Ideas do produce something. Ideas are what America is known for, not farming or manufacturing. Those are simply the result of thinking combined with liberty.
Your point about government bias is well taken. I don’t accept any form of crony capitalism. The General Welfare is exactly that - general. The minute government is aware of who will benefit from a law is the moment corruption begins. Government managed economies, like Chinas, are no good.