Written by: Anonymous

Listening to your debates on free trade, it strikes me that regardless of who is theoretically correct, it's all kind of irrelevent now. The world economy, including America's, is built on and now totally dependent on free trade. I know Answerman hates analogies, and I also know this is an oversimplification, but if you looked at the world as a big manufacturing company, the U.S. would be its Headquarters and the IT department while countries like South Korea would be the industrial plants.

So let's say we reverted to protectionism. What good are a headquarters and IT department if you don't have anyone making anything? And how well would the disparate plants function without a headquarters?

My point is that our economy and the world economy are completely tied to free trade. Take away free trade, or American hegemony for that matter, and it will all go down the tube in a very unpleasant fashion.


Of course, that is what I think is going to happen. Which is why I think we are doomed, and why I think Answerman might be theoretically correct that we should have stuck with protectionism rather than make ourselves this dependent on the rest of the world. But it's too late now.

Hopefully I will get a chance to elaborate on all this later.

P.S. - I know this isn't exactly what you were arguing about, but I think it's the essential issue at this point.