If we’re looking for an alternative, maybe there’s something else to learn from an emerging economy.   Maybe we should reconsider what China is doing.

China knows it has something of value in the simple existence of its billion-person market.  And China doesn’t give just anybody entry into this enormous opportunity.  It negotiates for something of value in return.

Of course, the American market is not so huge in terms of raw numbers as China’s.  But ours is substantially more affluent. Everybody in the world knows this, and everybody in the world consequently wants to sell here.  Why couldn’t we ask for something in return, also?

I realize that even raising such a question constitutes major heresy.  How can any contemporary American advocate anything other than free trade?  Doesn’t everybody in the U.S. (as well as everybody who wants to trade with the U.S.) unswervingly propound the Adam Smith-style view that the more open the trade, the better off everyone is?

Well, a lot of people certainly do continue to share that belief.  And it’s hard to argue with the notion that when everybody sticks to producing what they’re best and most efficient at producing, there’s more good stuff for everybody.  I’ve even seen the point demonstrated mathematically.

But there seem to be times when this kind of reasoning can be overdone, owing largely to differences between the circumstances in which Adam Smith wrote and the conditions that prevail today.