The difference between Japan and Korea with Latin America, for example, is that in the first tow countries protection was aimed at building capacities for export, while in Latin America it was designed to replace imports and avoid competition in the local market.

Another key difference is related with the “type” of capitalism in which countries evolved, categorized by Baumol, Litan and Schramm in his book “Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism, and the Economics of Growth and Prosperity”. In Latin America has prevailed oligarchic capitalism, “in which the bulk of power and wealth is monopolized by a small group of individuals and families”, while in Korea, Japan, Taiwan and other East Asian countries there was a mixture of state-guided capitalism, “in which the government tries to guide the market, mainly to support specific industries that it expects to become winners” and big-firm capitalism, “in which the most significant economic activities are carried out by established giant enterprises”. According to the authors, in the United States has prevailed a mixture of the latter type of capitalism together with what they call entrepreneurial capitalism, “in which a significant role is played by small, innovative firms”.

Finally, protectionism is a bad idea to implement in societies where prevail low levels of education and a culture contrary to progress, because such policies end stunting economic and technological development, favouring small groups well connected to power and harming the majority. This has been the history in Africa, Latin America and other underdeveloped regions.

Regarding the influence of education and cultural factors in economic development and policy effectiveness the works by Lawrence Harrison and Samuel P. Huntington are illustrative as well as the book of Francis Fukuyama “Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity.” From a Latin American and less academic perspective, the influence of both factors in the poor economic performance in this region is well addressed in several books by Alvaro Vargas Llosa, Plinio Mendoza and Carlos Alberto Montaner.

The problem is that economics is not compulsory at any level of school, and despite the fact that economists have understood comparative advantage for quite a while, most people have no conception of what it is or how it works. “Common sense” can easily be wrong, and much of economics is counterintuitive.

The United States collects more tariff money from Cambodia than from Britain.

Americans bought $1.96 trillion worth of imported goods last year. On this, the Customs Bureau collected $26 billion in tariff money.
Overall, therefore, the tariff rate is a low “trade-weighted” average of 1.3 percent. But most of this money — about $13.5 billion — comes from a narrow swathe of household goods in which one finds most of America’s higher tariffs.
These include $9.5 billion on clothes; $1.9 billion on shoes; $1 billion on luggage, purses, and wallets; $0.7 billion on towels, rugs, and linens; $0.7 billion more on sporting goods, plates, glasses, clocks, watches, and silverware. These products total $131 billion in imports, or less than 7 percent of all imports; but they raise nearly 60 percent of tariff money.

Some people seem to be paying attention to the cost to American consumers:
In the Affordable Footwear Initiative, Reps. Joe Crowley (D-NY), Kevin Brady (R-TX), and Nancy Boyda (D-KS) seek to scrap tariffs on low-priced sneakers and shoes not made in the United States.
Source: Progressive Policy Institute

Now, consider.
$11.4 billion in duties on clothes and shoes.
Most of the highest duties on products from low-cost (poor) countries, which logically means that the products themselves are destined for Wal-Mart rather than Saks.
In other words, PROTECTIONISM IS ANTI-POOR.
.

So, the next time you take a protectionist to lunch, try him medium rare, with a nice pepper sauce.

A full lie is better than a half truth…

Protecting infant industries is not a sufficient condition, however, it is a necessary condition for economic development!

Trade is certainly different from free trade!

Education, not only schooling, but “civil responsability” behavior education, encoraging families to invest in longer education, what means individual sacrifice, denoucing corruption, basic health, basic sewage, basic housing, learning how to deal with money, savings and credit, freedom of speech and responsible press,(…)

(…) there are so many issues that are necessary, but without all of them so many suffer so much!

When, everyday, you see so many begging on the streets, so many children playing tricks for a few coins…

The slums are continuosly growing and urban violence seems to be an inevitable consequence…

How can people lie about the real effects of free trade?

Certainly, they remind me the recent film “Thank you for smoking”!

Do they believe in life after death and eternal suffering?

Unfortunately for your argument, the South American countries were forced into the “open approach”. Their growth rates have halved from a healthy 3% to under 1.5% since the change.
Let’s not forget South Korea. Imports were near enough banned and any corporate infringement of this law was punishable by death. With the hard earned foreign currency from exports, machinery for heavy industrialisation was bought; it was at this time that shipbuilding began and the country remains number one in the world in this industry. Imports were just not allowed: people wore pirated, internally made goods such as “Nice” sneakers or “Nike” (with two swooshes) sneakers as well as home-grown tobacco. Before such measures of protection, Samsung (of mobile phones and home electronics fame) mainly exported fruit and fish.
Samsung, LG, Daewoo, Hyundai, the film industry…they were all under protection. Of course, liberalists only see what happened in the 90s, don’t they? Did they live to see the oppressive hand help to develop a country more than the invisible one?
Of course “Japan had access to these [American] technologies”; despite import embargos, so did South Korea. The country was the pirating capital of the world – they took apart IBM computers to copy components and designs, they forced FDI (foreign direct investment) into tiny areas of the country where their researchers could plagiarise and develop for the national industries. Korea lied, cheated and stole. It was sneaky and hid behind its sky-high tariffs and tiny import quotas, building an industry and technology that was capable of competing with the ‘big boys’.
By the way, comparative advantage would have emerged, true. Only problem is, comparative advantage promotes status quo. Japan would have found its niche as a cheap car producer, and stayed there. The Lexus could clearly not have been conceived. It would have been bought by Ford or some other American firm. It would have been squashed; or at best, a minor subsidiary.
Remember that not all firms are successful to begin with. Nokia was in the red for 17 years before it made any profit, and it was supported by the government.

By the way, this article has been further developed and been placed inside Chang’s new book. ‘Bad Samaritans’ published by Random House. Compelling read…pretty much answers all the critics in this thread.