THE founding myth of the dominant nations is that they achieved their industrial and technological superiority through free trade. Nations that are poor today are told that if they want to follow our path to riches they must open their economies to foreign competition. They are being conned.
Almost every rich nation has industrialised with the help of one of two mechanisms now prohibited by the rules of global trade. The first is “infant industry protection”: defending new industries from foreign competition until they are big enough to compete on equal terms. The second is the theft of intellectual property.…
