In Germany by far, yes
In most other countries probably about the same with some volatility and ups and downs
If anything countries have become economically more liberal than at any other point in history
Do you think Macron made France less liberal
No, not under laissez-faire markets under Victorian rule oder inside the German Kaiser Reich
The Kaiserreich had a welfare state and strict regulations
What do you mean by liberal? The real sense of the word or the nowadays meaning?
Victorian England was a mercantile empire
The single most impactfull liberalization happened regarding trade
The GATT and WTO being introduced
> The Kaiserreich had a welfare state and strict regulations @Mr. Nessel Due to more and more regulations and interventions. Not in the beginning, and even after the state quota remained pretty low
> The GATT and WTO being introduced @Mr. Nessel That's not freedom, that's supra governmental regulation
Bismarck was forced to create the welfare state relatively early on
remember Germany only became a country in the 1870s
Yes, that was the problem in the first place
The GATT and WTO forced people to have free trade
That's not free trade
It is
Because it lowered tariffs across the board
That's just convergence of regulations
That's pretty retarded
Yeah, some parts of it have some free trade
No they're exclusively about free trade
But states still don't really care
The GATT is the General agreement on tariff and trade
The WTO the world trade organization which punishes countries for not engaging in free trade
It actually forced Bush to not have steel tariffs for example
Or the EU to let in sugar from Brazil
Whereas prior the EU was subsidizing sugar beets and had tariffs
That is not free trade
Free trade is deregulation
And no tariffs
free trade is trading without tariffs
That's it
Only because you reach some lower tariffs doesn't make it free trade
Yes it's freer than before
But it's not free trade
So you're only willing to call it free trade if literally everything has no tariffs applied to it
And the EU is the worst example with it's mercantilist policies
Because that's a ridiculous threshhold
> So you're only willing to call it free trade if literally everything has no tariffs applied to it @Mr. Nessel Yes
