Mercantilismo

Por favor, no se pierdan este artículo de Steve Hanke sobre el “neomercantilismo”. El autor se refiere a la ola proteccionista de EEUU para poner límites al ingreso de productos chinos, pero sus argumentos aplican perfectamente al “nuevo paradigma de desarrollo” argentino:

Mercantilism was an insidious economic theory that held Europe in its thrall in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. The mercantilists decreed that a nation's economic success could be measured by its stockpile of gold and that the way to make the pile higher was to encourage exports and restrict imports. Adam Smith routed the mercantilists in Book IV of the Wealth of Nations (1776). His lesson was clear: Open markets and trade are "goods," not "bads."

The war, alas, is not over. Mercantilism is back. Its adherents use new lingo and make slightly different arguments—they hoard jobs, not gold—but their poisonous creed is in essence the same. It is that a nation can enrich itself by boosting exports and chasing imports away. Mercantilism is behind the campaign to make the Chinese revalue their currency upward. The preposterous notion here is that America would be enriched if Chinese apparel cost a little more.