Source: The Dispatch
by Scott Lincicome
“In the early days of the republic (back when government was really small), tariffs were the primary means of both raising revenue and doling out ‘rents’ to businesses that organized and lobbied for them. The wonderfully named Tariff of Abominations (1828) was heavily influenced by Northern textile and iron producers. The post-Civil War decades were a golden age of tariff rent-seeking, with the U.S. iron, steel, wool, and sugar industries essentially writing U.S. tariff schedules. As I’ve documented at Cato and as Dartmouth economic historian Douglas Irwin thoroughly chronicles in his great book, Clashing Over Commerce, 19th-century tariff lobbying was in many respects an incubator for the entire U.S. lobbying and interest-group machine that exists today. And it began because American trade policy was openly auctioned off to the highest bidder. Offer the rents, and the rents get sought.” (06/11/26)
https://thedispatch.com/newsletter/dispatch-markets/america-250-smith-wealth-nations/