'I can quote off the top of my head many examples of countries that have got much richer in my lifetime through trade. Just think "East Asia." I can quote off the top of the head many countries that have been "building up" their industries through protection for forty or fifty years now and are scarcely further along than the day they started. Think India, East Africa.'
There is much truth to this. But there's not as much as she thinks. As D-Squared (t's a blogspot archive link so probably won't work, but it's in the first week archives, 'Global as you wanna be') noted, the most successful of the NICs (not counting Singapore, but Singapore's a special case), South Korea, built itself up by massive government subsidy and intervention. Malaysia used capital controls, as abhorrent to libertarians as they are to free-traders, I'd imagine.
posted by Matthew @ 6/24/2003 02:01:00 PM
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