Social Sciences and History / Unit 11 SSH 1038 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Two Paths: International Trade or Self-Sufficiency
The idea
The exam describes a country's development strategy and asks which path it follows, and the anchor's chapter sets out two. The international trade model: a country embraces free trade, specializes in goods and services valuable as exports, accepts rising imports, and removes trade barriers; its strength is growth through comparative advantage, its weakness dependence on world markets. The self-sufficiency model: a centralized strategy to develop all sectors inside the borders and reduce dependence on outsiders, with tight controls on trade and heavy protection for domestic producers; its strength is insulation, its weakness inefficiency. The instruments belong to the second: tariffs, taxes on imports; quotas, limits on amounts; nontariff barriers, regulations and embargoes; domestic subsidies. Market liberalization removes them.
In practice
Given "the country specializes in coffee for export and imports its machinery", international trade. Given "the country builds its own steel and car industries behind high tariffs", self-sufficiency. Given "a fair-trade label guaranteeing growers a higher price", neither path but a trading system with social aims. Ask whether the country opens or closes.
Where people slip
The trap is the anchor's conclusion, that history seems to favor openness but with serious risk; the course voices it as the anchor's judgment. The second trap is comparative against absolute advantage: the anchor's absolute advantage is rare resources, comparative the lowest opportunity cost.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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