/sci/ - Science & Math

At the beginning of the 20th century, all Western nations were quite protectionist. This was just the way things were. High amounts of tariffs and trade guards and not many multi lateral trade deals and neutered trade protections.

This made it much easier for the domestic citizen-worker to negotiate and demand fair pay arrangements. It also made unions viable.

Then, after WW2, hyper-globalization kicked in. Tariffs died everywhere. The "free trade" religion was adopted in schools of economics everywhere. It was lauded as max efficiency. What it neglected to mention was that it was going to fuck over 50% of the working class in every Western country. Rich business elite could now make their products for peanuts using Asian slave labor while selling to Americans.

The reason why you can no longer criticize "totally free trade" is because it is quite lucrative for the richest men on the planet.