On Property And International Trade

In my previous post, I discussed how the inviolability of Property is the Key to Liberty. In particular, I discussed immigration restrictions. I showed how no immigration official should be allowed to stop anyone from occupying his own Property, including rented property, on foreign soil.

In precisely the same way, Property is the Key to free international trade.

Let us examine how:

First, just as a farmer is free to grow whatever crop he chooses on his fields, which are his Property, so too is a shopkeeper entitled to stock whatever he chooses to in his shop, which is his Property.

Let us now suppose that one such enterprising shopkeeper wants to set up a store called “Beers Of The World.”

He then places orders for great German beers, Bohemian beers, Dutch beers, Belgian beers, English ales and Irish stouts. He pays for his purchases, so these become his Property.

Suppliers now ship all these diverse beers to him.

How can a customs official stop his Property from reaching his shop? Under the Rule of Law, the customs official cannot intervene. These foreign beers belong to the shopkeeper, and they must be allowed to reach his shop.

We are therefore possessed of a Rule of Law solution to free international trade and free international mobility. In both cases, Politics is unnecessary. We do not need a WTO. We do not need politicians and bureaucrats and their “trade negotiations.” We have Liberty Under Law, based entirely on the inviolability of Property. This also means the end of Cronyism: the misuse of the customs department by politicians to set up “tariff walls” for the benefit of domestic businessmen. All markets are international; all markets are fully competitive; and all markets are open. The Consumer is the King. The politician has no discretionary powers over The Market.

Note how Obama is using his discretionary powers to restrict trade and immigration. Our external affairs minister is making loud noises against US protectionism, saying that it will harm US firms. The editors of the Indian Express are echoing this sentiment, saying that “the US’s support, explicit and implicit, for protectionism is deeply disturbing.”

Both the minister as well as the editors are, of course, being deeply hypocritical. No one in human history has hurt the cause of free international trade more than Kamal Nutt, our anti-commerce minister – at the WTO they call him “the one-man roadblock” – and neither the foreign minister, nor the “economist” PM Chacha Manmohan S Gandhi, nor the editors of the Express have ever objected, by saying that Nutt was hurting Indian importers and Indian consumers. They are now “playing politics” – a despicable game in which The People invariably lose.

The solution: Property.

The result: Liberty.

The Song: Push The Tempo!