To protect their populations against internal and external threats and revolts, Sparta - the ancient Greek city-state made a few decisions.
1. Every Spartan citizen has to join the army and train since childhood to become the best fighter possible. Weaklings are killed at birth.
2. The currency of Spartans was changed to heavy iron bars. Prevented folks from other neighbouring city-states from doing business with Spartans.
This made Sparta very independent. And their citizens became the best fighters the world had ever seen. People looked up to them in awe. Poems are written about them.
But these same protectionist rules that made Sparta glorious for little time, led to Sparta decline in the long run.
Moral of the story has always been: protectionism brings short term benefits but long term doom.
But yet we'll always see the majority of the people rooting for protectionism for short term progress.
(I'm pretty sure I'll be slammed for this post because there is no direct relation or parallels between Spartan policies and American policies. Time was different. Threats were different. Rules were different. But I had to write it to make a point against general protectionism. And not against any specific American policy including the one being talked about here - restricting H1-Bs.)
But these same protectionist rules that made Sparta glorious for little time, led to Sparta decline in the long run.
What did for the Spartans was all dying glorious deaths before having enough kids. The Spartan economy, operated by the Perioikoi and Helots, was strong enough, but it relied on there being a critical mass of adult male Spartans to maintain it. Protectionism was little to do with the fall - the Perioikoi could trade with whomever they pleased.
1. Yes but Spartan rules of being killer fighters made immigration impossible.
2. The Perioikoi could trade with whomever they pleased - but - but no one wanted to trade with them because of the iron slabs being used as currency of exchange.
Dig a little deeper into the motives as to why such rules were made by the Spartans and you will see that it was pure protectionism.
The Spartans were not illiterate - they preferred oral history and verbal contracts to written records. Similarly they were perfectly capable of building things, yet they preferred that Sparta itself was a city of small buildings without walls. There's nothing left of it today.
Spartans, basically, eschewed possessions, apart from their personal weapons. They didn't want to grow soft and weak, so they made luxury impossible. An adult male Spartan owned some land, which was farmed by Perioikoi or Helots, and he was responsible for providing his share of food to the barracks in which he lived, but he could not "profit", ever. Perioikoi (permanent residents of Sparta but not Spartiate themselves) could and did get rich. Even Helots (slaves from conquered enemies) usually lived materially richer lives than Spartans.
What they should have done was announced that glorious deaths didn't count until a Spartan had had so many kids, that would have made everyone happy.
And Spartans sucked anyway, not leaving much to the history except barracks sodomy, heroic deaths and a handful of 2nd grade poets. Must have something to do with all the weaklings they gotten rid of.
1. Every Spartan citizen has to join the army and train since childhood to become the best fighter possible. Weaklings are killed at birth.
2. The currency of Spartans was changed to heavy iron bars. Prevented folks from other neighbouring city-states from doing business with Spartans.
This made Sparta very independent. And their citizens became the best fighters the world had ever seen. People looked up to them in awe. Poems are written about them.
But these same protectionist rules that made Sparta glorious for little time, led to Sparta decline in the long run.
Populations declines. Wealth declines. Progress declines.
Moral of the story has always been: protectionism brings short term benefits but long term doom.
But yet we'll always see the majority of the people rooting for protectionism for short term progress.
(I'm pretty sure I'll be slammed for this post because there is no direct relation or parallels between Spartan policies and American policies. Time was different. Threats were different. Rules were different. But I had to write it to make a point against general protectionism. And not against any specific American policy including the one being talked about here - restricting H1-Bs.)