"Thus the tariff deliberately cancels the effect of this is called progress, it claims to bring us back to the state when the world was when transport was if not impossible, at least extremely expensive. Customs duty Bastiat said, is a rail anchor iron. " (J. Rueff, 1980)
Tariffs have a bad press among economists, who see tools for protection of certain economic sectors insufficiently competitive price "taxation" invisible consumer - the community as a whole is generally unsuccessful, only winners are the sheltered sectors.
To subject, the Nobel laureate Paul Krugman cited the following story: Imagine a textile entrepreneur who invents a miraculous machine that through a secret process, can divide by 10 the production of shirts. Immediately, the inventor would be celebrated as a hero capable of demonstrating the national ingenuity can overcome the brute force of low wages. Now imagine that we actually demonstrates that the "miracle machine" is actually a warehouse, which go on convoys that ship textiles to China and bring shirts. The hero would be immediately reduced to the rank of délocaliseurs.
Starting with this anecdote, we might conclude that if we decide to tax the imports in the second case, it would also tax the innovation. Then we would bring the debate over tariffs in debate on the social model : if France can have cheap shirts it must do, the only question being able to find a better jobs for employees and the company more valuable than the production of shirts too expensive?
But there are other types of "customs duties", such as "carbon tax on imports, which aims to to pay the cleanup costs would have to pay the firms in countries that have no regulations on emissions. It is indeed here to remove "unfair competition" by depriving an unfair advantage a competitor whose competitiveness is at the expense of the environment. It's the same of "customs duties social ", designed to offset the unfair advantage enjoyed by countries that are working in conditions of working hours, sub training, employee representative or health unworthy.
Indeed, imports of goods and services import indirectly a social model: if one wishes to have in Europe of a model different from the less demanding of our partners (less unequal, more conscious of employees, more environmentally friendly), go beyond the free movement of goods and services.
If the theoretical principle of these rights is somewhat questionable, the implementation is extremely complex - but the issue probably deserves some much study and research the best possible compromise between complexity and efficiency. Then remains essentially: initiate a constructive discussion with our economic partners and combine this project with an ambitious development aid to convince our partners that such a device is not a disguised protectionist measure but rather a among other measures to establish a more humane globalization.
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