Protectionism Meets Luddism

I can't help but notice that we are constantly being told that protectionism is a bad thing. It won't work, and anyway, manufacturing jobs are not coming back because of automation.

Yet - how do they propose that we deal with the loss of so many jobs? Tax robots to pay for sinecures. Presumably the tax itself will slow the pace of automation because it becomes more expensive.

In other words - protectionism against robots.

So maybe protectionism is not so ridiculous after all?

That is all.