Your supposed explanation of it involves inland farmers, salt miners and English merchants connecting the two. This is indeed more complicated than Ricardo and thus seems to address Baudel’s supposed confusion, but it also has nothing to do with Ricardo’s model of “comparative advantage”.
It simply does not make sense to say that there is an “underlying comparative advantage” between the salt miners and the farmers, since they’re not trading with each other, they’re each just trading with the merchant.
The merchant has an “absolute advantage” in “transported salt” over the farmers. The salt miners can’t offer “transported salt”, since they’re in the “salt-mine salt” business. ”Salt mine salt” is completely worthless to the farmers, since their farms aren’t where the salt mines are. The English merchant by the act of transport, turns worthless (to the farmers) “salt-mine salt” into valuable “transported salt”. And if the English can force a monopoly over the river, sinking every non-English salt-trader who would turn “salt-mine salt” into “transported salt”, this model also involves coercion.
A mercantilist ruins the potential for “comparative advantage” by slapping on import taxes, which is also coercive. Ricardo assumes a free market, and shows that “comparative advantage” is also specifically the gain only a free market can provide.
Just look how nice Portugal and England are to each other, seamlessly cooperating to maximize wine, cloth and minimize hours spent! Everybody gets richer without any coercion by being nice to each other. It shows that something beautiful would be lost, if England raised import taxes on Portugues wine and how it doesn’t serve English interests. And that Portugal would lose by raising import taxes on English cloth, as well.
That’s why classical economics is part science, part humanitarian philosophy.
Also the wiki article doesn’t mention pareto or pareto-optimal or optimization. So I’m guessing you’re confused what “comparative advantage” means, rather than Baudel.
Baudel is criticizing Ricardo’s model of “comparative advantage”, which only has two agents, Home and Foreign.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage#Ricardian_model
Ricardo criticizes “comparative advantage” specifically for being too simple.
Your supposed explanation of it involves inland farmers, salt miners and English merchants connecting the two. This is indeed more complicated than Ricardo and thus seems to address Baudel’s supposed confusion, but it also has nothing to do with Ricardo’s model of “comparative advantage”.
It simply does not make sense to say that there is an “underlying comparative advantage” between the salt miners and the farmers, since they’re not trading with each other, they’re each just trading with the merchant.
The merchant has an “absolute advantage” in “transported salt” over the farmers. The salt miners can’t offer “transported salt”, since they’re in the “salt-mine salt” business.
”Salt mine salt” is completely worthless to the farmers, since their farms aren’t where the salt mines are.
The English merchant by the act of transport, turns worthless (to the farmers) “salt-mine salt” into valuable “transported salt”.
And if the English can force a monopoly over the river, sinking every non-English salt-trader who would turn “salt-mine salt” into “transported salt”, this model also involves coercion.
A mercantilist ruins the potential for “comparative advantage” by slapping on import taxes, which is also coercive.
Ricardo assumes a free market, and shows that “comparative advantage” is also specifically the gain only a free market can provide.
Just look how nice Portugal and England are to each other, seamlessly cooperating to maximize wine, cloth and minimize hours spent! Everybody gets richer without any coercion by being nice to each other. It shows that something beautiful would be lost, if England raised import taxes on Portugues wine and how it doesn’t serve English interests. And that Portugal would lose by raising import taxes on English cloth, as well.
That’s why classical economics is part science, part humanitarian philosophy.
Also the wiki article doesn’t mention pareto or pareto-optimal or optimization. So I’m guessing you’re confused what “comparative advantage” means, rather than Baudel.