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Two Sides to Free Trade
Memo from the IMF
To: Salva Kiir Mayardit, President, South Sudan.
Mister President, let me tell you about the wonders of free trade. Absolute free trade is the path that will lead your people to the edge of greatness and develop your country in the best manner.
When we talk about economics, one of the best things to do is make a model. The world is an incredibly complicated organism, with billions of people making thousands of decisions every day, and a good many of those operate in the economic sphere, as workers or as investors or as consumers or savers. “The Economy” writ large is all around us. One could argue that most of our decisions are economics decisions in some way. So instead of talking about this highly complex organization, we can instead look at once person in isolation as a model of how all people work.
The model that many economists use in looking at a society in isolation is Robinson Crusoe. What they will focus on the fact that we have a man who is trapped on an island who is looking to recreate society as he knew it on an island in isolation. All he has is his wits and the flotsam and jetsam from the ship he was sailing on that wrecked. He lives his life in isolation, making shelter and procuring his own food. He lives in a state of complete self-reliance. He might not be the best shelter builder in the…
