Resolved: That the US should implement additional protectionist policies

I am very busy with work this week, but I will try not to disappoint. -The Fallacy of Comparative Advantage- Comparative advantage, most simply stated, is the theory that a producer who can produce the greatest quantity of a good, without sacrificing quality, for the least expense, acts as an efficient producer of that good and has a comparative advantage to other producers. [1] Such a producer may be deemed a most efficient producer if the producer has no competition for the given product. In theory, allowing the most efficient producing nation to have access to other nations should work out great. Provided that you have effective anti-dumping and anti-subsidy measures in place, the goods you import from the most efficient producer would cost your consumers less and would not be less valuable in their displacement of comparative goods produced in your own country. Free trade is founded upon this theory. There's just one catch: a country can only produce as efficiently as its cultural values, reflected in its business ethics and labor laws, allow. In a country such as the United States, for example, productivity is limited to the extent that it does not involve child labor, unconscionable labor hours, forced labor, or unsafe working conditions. So what happens if a country does not have the same standards as we do? Well, they might produce the goods more efficiently, in a manner of speaking. [2] The problem is that the efficiency your consumers gain comes at the expense of the cultural value your buying power once maintained. Here's an illustration: let's say that a Chinese child laborer (ccl) works for $0.10 an hour, whereas a U. S. laborer (usl) in the same field works for $8.00 an hour. Assuming the product is of the same quality, you can afford to hire up to 80 ccls for every one usl. Your efficiency is seemingly increased ten fold. Furthermore, if you wish to hire only 50 ccls, you might be able to get away with inferior production processes. Now you're efficient only because, compared to the consumer culture you are infiltrating, you are a criminal. This is the problem with free trade: the countries that benefit from it most are the ones we should least want to support with our consumer dollars. When we do, we displace our cultural values within our society, at least to the extent of that singular product or service, with those of the provisionary society. This has two effects: (1) unemployment for the local competitive industry that is no longer deemed efficient and (2) gradual cultural shift and reduction of quality of life for the consumptive society. Lower income physical laborers are usually replaced first; such individuals rarely have the expertise to find gainful employment outside of their specific field. Their unemployment reduces the number of consumers willing to pay for professional services they could not handle themselves, especially lawyers and accountants. The unemployment rate then spikes in these fields, which results in a massive loss of buying power within the consumer industry, paralyzing the consumptive nation's economy. [3] This will continue until the consumptive country's social values change to make the country as productive as the more competitive countries. In other words, some of China's values become ours. After all, imagine if a wealthy nation, like the US, paid child laborers ten cents an hour to work more productive machines. Could we put the ccls out of business then? Yes, but at a much higher cost than can be measured in money. -Solution- The solution is not to be isolationist, but to be protective. One is not necessarily the other. Tariffs, for example, can be used to offset differences between the labor costs of competing nations, where one nation is more efficient only because it is less humane. Setting a tariff on goods produced by ccls equal to $7.90 per labor hour used in producing such units would discourage the use of ccls only if as seems likely, if the goods are otherwise being produced through less efficient or safe production methods. [4] In this way, nations that are actually innovative would prevail, while those that used trade disparities would fail. Efficient producers who maintain comparative advantage through technological innovation should be encouraged. Those who do so through exploitation of their fellow man, discouraged. So long as tariffs are only protective in relation to labor costs, trade may and in fact, should, otherwise be free, to encourage innovation and improvements that lead to real advances in efficiency. [1] . http://www.teriin.org... [2] . http://www.fpif.org... [3] . http://www.allbusiness.com... [4] . http://www.nytimes.com...