Hacker News Reader

The point is to have a system that does not discriminate based on lottery.

Well, an American farmer cannot sell his grain in India. That also seems to be discrimination simply because he is in the wrong place. Are you arguing that all protectionism is flawed and wrong?

Until very recently, that was a pretty common view. Countries generally want unconstrained exports, while limiting competitive imports.

That might be true in practice but also 1) completely incompatible with global notions of fairness and justice, and 2) not an especially compelling political argument for getting countries to open up their markets.

(1) Agreed.

(2) There’s very few sustainable global competitive advantages. Sometimes you might have a better natural resource by virtue of geography and getting in first to “own“ it. But for most businesses, reducing trade barriers really just introduces more competition.

That's a great ideal, but is obviously impossible to the extent that you are implying, until we can eliminate national and legal borders entirely, which is a distant-future goal. You're putting the horse lightyears before the cart.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com