The thing is, we really want and need a cost-competitive domestic ship-building industry. The Jones Act is obviously horrible when applied to PR, AK, and HI, and may well be the wrong tool in general. But it’s no use railing against it without talking about better, alternative means of structuring a vibrant, more competitive ship-building industry. Why must it be so expensive here? We tried pretending we could just have no industrial policy. That worked out very poorly. theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/