Free Trade Means Free Trade
16 April 2006
Editor, The Washington Post Book World
1150 15th St., NW
Washington, DC 20071
Dear Editor:
Reviewing Stephen Kinzer's Overthrow, Julia Sweig recounts how white plantation owners in 19th-century Hawaii supported Uncle Sam's overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani in order to "get in on a lucrative but protected mainland sugar market" ("The Meddlesome Uncle Sam," April 16). Ms. Sweig then asks rhetorically "Ever wonder why free trade has such a bad name?"
What has free trade to do with this event? By Ms. Sweig's own admission, the U.S. sugar market was protected. Such protection, not coincidentally, was found by economists Alan Dye and Richard Sicotte* to have contributed significantly to the success of Castro's communist revolution in Cuba.
The question as I ask it is not rhetorical: “Why DOES free trade have such a bad name?"
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
* Alan Dye and Richard Sicotte, "The U.S. Sugar Program and the Cuban Revolution," Journal of Economic History, Vol. 64, September 2004, pp. 673-704.
Editor, The Washington Post Book World
1150 15th St., NW
Washington, DC 20071
Dear Editor:
Reviewing Stephen Kinzer's Overthrow, Julia Sweig recounts how white plantation owners in 19th-century Hawaii supported Uncle Sam's overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani in order to "get in on a lucrative but protected mainland sugar market" ("The Meddlesome Uncle Sam," April 16). Ms. Sweig then asks rhetorically "Ever wonder why free trade has such a bad name?"
What has free trade to do with this event? By Ms. Sweig's own admission, the U.S. sugar market was protected. Such protection, not coincidentally, was found by economists Alan Dye and Richard Sicotte* to have contributed significantly to the success of Castro's communist revolution in Cuba.
The question as I ask it is not rhetorical: “Why DOES free trade have such a bad name?"
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
* Alan Dye and Richard Sicotte, "The U.S. Sugar Program and the Cuban Revolution," Journal of Economic History, Vol. 64, September 2004, pp. 673-704.
Posted by Don Boudreaux on
Saturday January 20, 2007 at 10:05am