The mind of the planner believes it can replace the mind of the market. That it can design an economy with rules, duties, and tariffs—forced flows replacing free ones, coercion in place of cooperation. But the planner sees only what is seen. And as Mises taught, calculation without market prices is impossible. The moment you interrupt voluntary exchange, you extinguish the signals by which rational economic decisions are made.
Tariffs are not tools of prosperity. They are tools of ignorance.
They break the price system. They sever the communication between billions of actors coordinating through dispersed knowledge. Hayek saw this clearly—no central authority can possess the information necessary to improve upon the free market. The genius of the system lies in its spontaneity: each man pursuing his own ends, reacting to prices, not policies.
A tariff distorts that signal. It creates a false cost, a political price, an artificial inefficiency. It whispers to a dying industry, “you are still needed,” when the market has already spoken. It tells the consumer, “pay more for less,” and calls it fairness. It tells the entrepreneur, “don’t innovate—lobby,” and calls it protection.
It is not protection. It is predation.
When a government imposes a tariff, it is not acting in the name of the people. It is acting against the people. It takes from many to give to few. It props up the inefficient by taxing the efficient. It turns the economy into a theatre of rent-seeking and state manipulation.
Mises would call it economic suicide masked as policy. Hayek would call it the road to serfdom—because once you intervene in the market in one place, you must do it again, and again, and again, to patch the failures created by the last intervention.
The free market does not need fixing. Free Markets need freedom.
So let us be clear:
Tariffs are not solutions—they are symptoms.
Tariffs do not help—they delay.
Tariffs do not hurt China—they hurt the very foundation of prosperity: the ability of free individuals to trade, think, and build without coercion.
And once that foundation crumbles, all that’s left is a façade—until it, too, falls.
3/3
S. Tominaga AKA CSW
Apr 7, 2025
https://x.com/CsTominaga/status/1909235354525372739?t=Vl67S5jAnrnkjTYe9NHrkQ&s=19
https://t.me/S_Tominaga/2820
Tariffs are not tools of prosperity. They are tools of ignorance.
They break the price system. They sever the communication between billions of actors coordinating through dispersed knowledge. Hayek saw this clearly—no central authority can possess the information necessary to improve upon the free market. The genius of the system lies in its spontaneity: each man pursuing his own ends, reacting to prices, not policies.
A tariff distorts that signal. It creates a false cost, a political price, an artificial inefficiency. It whispers to a dying industry, “you are still needed,” when the market has already spoken. It tells the consumer, “pay more for less,” and calls it fairness. It tells the entrepreneur, “don’t innovate—lobby,” and calls it protection.
It is not protection. It is predation.
When a government imposes a tariff, it is not acting in the name of the people. It is acting against the people. It takes from many to give to few. It props up the inefficient by taxing the efficient. It turns the economy into a theatre of rent-seeking and state manipulation.
Mises would call it economic suicide masked as policy. Hayek would call it the road to serfdom—because once you intervene in the market in one place, you must do it again, and again, and again, to patch the failures created by the last intervention.
The free market does not need fixing. Free Markets need freedom.
So let us be clear:
Tariffs are not solutions—they are symptoms.
Tariffs do not help—they delay.
Tariffs do not hurt China—they hurt the very foundation of prosperity: the ability of free individuals to trade, think, and build without coercion.
And once that foundation crumbles, all that’s left is a façade—until it, too, falls.
3/3
S. Tominaga AKA CSW
Apr 7, 2025
https://x.com/CsTominaga/status/1909235354525372739?t=Vl67S5jAnrnkjTYe9NHrkQ&s=19
https://t.me/S_Tominaga/2820
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