In 1845 schreef Frédéric Bastiat een satire waarin hij de Franse kaarsenmakers liet oproepen tot protectionistische maatregelen wegens de komst van een agressieve en oneerlijke buitenlandse concurrent. Thijs verwees er al eens naar:
We are suffering from the ruinous competition of a rival who apparently works under conditions so far superior to our own for the production of light that he is flooding the domestic market with it at an incredibly low price; for the moment he appears, our sales cease, all the consumers turn to him, and a branch of French industry whose ramifications are innumerable is all at once reduced to complete stagnation. This rival, which is none other than the sun, is waging war on us […]
Ultieme ironie. In 2008 roepen de Europese kaarsenmakers op tot protectionistische maatregelen wegens de komst van een agressieve en oneerlijke buitenlandse concurrent:
European candlemakers […] recently filed an anti-dumping complaint with the European Commission targeting booming Chinese imports. The European Candle Institute, […] said imports of Chinese-made candles had nearly doubled from 2002 to 2006 while prices had tumbled, eating into European manufacturers’ profit margins. “The massive underselling from China cannot be explained with economic advantages, particularly on account of lower wages,” the association said in a statement. […] “This competition is only possible on account of unfair and therefore non-legal methods.”
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