“To blame America rather than China for disrupting world trade is to denounce the victim for engaging in self-defense.” Should have been the first sentence, but eminently sensible essay.
Not that I disagree with anything you said but I doubt that 25% of the people have heard the word and far fewer would understand it. It is time to discuss another term that few know-autarchy. The supply chain debacle during the COVID lunacy and the resilience of Russia in the face of sanctions that are unprecedented short of all out war are examples that require the discussion. The pure form is unobtainable as are the pure forms of free trade or mercantilism and even attenuated forms are inefficient. But inefficiency is sometimes safer. An analysis of what goods are absolutely essential for national survival and a strategy to source as much as possible domestically is called for.
Returning the relevance of history to economics is invaluable. Situating the present within the structure of a coherent narrative that follows the genealogy of Western civilization is a prerequisite for understanding, legislating, and healing.
While this article is right in unveiling the destructive effects of "free trade", it totally fails to address the big elephant in the room în the US, which is the massive concentration of wealth and economic and political power in the hands of a few private entities. These immensely rich parasitical financial sharks have taken the State hostage so that no matter what political party is in power it pursues their own private interests instead of pursuing the interests of society at large. So that the State is busy making these ultra rich happy by creating a pandemic for the profit of Big Pharma, igniting wars and running a trillion USD military budget for the profit of MIC and turning a blind eye on everything that could improve the living conditions of the people.
China's policies stay in stark contrast to this: they strive to make the WHOLE society thrive so that 1.4 billion people never face poverty, hunger and homelessness. China's economic expansion might be considered aggressive by jealous enemies but the Chinese never wage wars, don't surround competitors with military bases and don't try to coerce "allies" into hostile actions against their rivals. They build roads, railways, ports and factories throughout the world, helping nations get out of poverty, like they did with their own population.
This is the biggest difference between the two approaches and the healing of the US wounds should start from within.
Dear Professor Lind. When you write “a localized mercantilism may survive within the integrated unit because of the division of labor among manufacturing and commodity-producing regions, as in the U.S. between the Civil War and the New Deal”, respectfully, you’re retrojecting a level of economic central planning, continental integration and central assignment of roles that simply did not exist in that period.
America during those decades a landscape of massive internal diversification and redundancy. Large swaths of the West, Midwest, and Northeast all maintained overlapping mixes of mining, timber, agriculture, manufacturing, rail-repair, machine shops, foundries, and later electrical and chemical works, and lots more; often at city or county scale, not merely state scale. This redundancy was a deliberate aspect of the Old Republic’s decentralized political economy, with capital grounded locally and states controlling corporate law, banking, and infrastructure, regions built parallel and competing industrial bases rather than submitting to any continent-wide division of labor.
It seems the US neglect of enforcement against mercantilist behavior up until 1990 could have been motivated by recreating and sustaining German and Japanese industrial power to confront the USSR. However, with the fall of the USSR, rather than recalibrating the US doubled down with the WTO. If so, is the WTO framework something which needs to be addressed?
Many thanks for such an informative and topical essay. I barely escaped (British) High School and found it quite accessible. We live in such a fascinating era, but there is so much to understand. 🙏👍
"China.. has destroyed political and popular support for a neoliberal trading system worldwide with its aggressive use of strategies that seek to maximize the Chinese share of crucial manufacturing industries at the expense of trading partners"? Come, come!
The US began deindustrializing n 1954 and the share of Americans involved in manufacturing has declined in an almost straight, 45º line since then. China's WTO accession made no difference to the decline.
Western countries were eager to get rid of dirty, capital-intensive, labor-intensive industries and China was eager to get them.
Michael, excellent explication of history and on concepts in action. I offer one minor enhancement on the origins of Hamilton's 1791 Report on Manufactures: Hamilton produced the report in response to a congressional resolution asking him to prepare a plan that would realize President Washington's aspirations as expressed in his first annual address to Congress:
A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories as tend to render them independent of others for essential, particularly military, supplies.
Mr Lind seems a tad defensive:). As always on Commonplace, there is plenty of thin-skinned criticism of fellow elites, just not much commentary on what the leader of the "new" right is actually doing in the real world. Meanwhile, the "new" right agenda is unfolding before us in spectacular fashion, led by the movements founder and intellectual lodestar-Don. Let's all enjoy the spectacle, lord knows we need humor in our lives these days.
Karl, I liked Mr. Lind’s essay precisely because it did provide commentary relevant to the Trump administration’s policies and the intellectual tools needed to relieve its fearless leader of his intellectual duties.
So, while I applaud your enthusiasm for humor, the laughter I hear from you is coming from the peanut gallery.
Am I mistaken? Or did I miss the part where you addressed what Mr. Lind actually did say as opposed to what he did not?
Jim I'll say this for Mr Lind. He's eloquent in his effort to retrofit an intellectual framework around Don's taco trade schizophrenia. And his history lesson, though barely relevant, is mildly interesting nonetheless. But, like much Commonplace commentary, it has an "other than that Mrs Lincoln" feel. And I'll readily cop to the humor accusation. I just have to laugh at the stupidity and incoherence of Don and his acolytes. It's just doggone funny stuff!
Oh yes I caught his passing references to the administration's strategery, such as it is. But, as I reflect on the public descriptions of this strategery offered by Don, Bessent, Hassett, Lutnick, et al, I struggle for the coherence ascribed to it by Mr Lind. All I hear are random, incoherent comments by Don, followed by embarrassing attempts at cleanup. Am I missing something?
“To blame America rather than China for disrupting world trade is to denounce the victim for engaging in self-defense.” Should have been the first sentence, but eminently sensible essay.
China AND Europe.
YES!
Not that I disagree with anything you said but I doubt that 25% of the people have heard the word and far fewer would understand it. It is time to discuss another term that few know-autarchy. The supply chain debacle during the COVID lunacy and the resilience of Russia in the face of sanctions that are unprecedented short of all out war are examples that require the discussion. The pure form is unobtainable as are the pure forms of free trade or mercantilism and even attenuated forms are inefficient. But inefficiency is sometimes safer. An analysis of what goods are absolutely essential for national survival and a strategy to source as much as possible domestically is called for.
Returning the relevance of history to economics is invaluable. Situating the present within the structure of a coherent narrative that follows the genealogy of Western civilization is a prerequisite for understanding, legislating, and healing.
While this article is right in unveiling the destructive effects of "free trade", it totally fails to address the big elephant in the room în the US, which is the massive concentration of wealth and economic and political power in the hands of a few private entities. These immensely rich parasitical financial sharks have taken the State hostage so that no matter what political party is in power it pursues their own private interests instead of pursuing the interests of society at large. So that the State is busy making these ultra rich happy by creating a pandemic for the profit of Big Pharma, igniting wars and running a trillion USD military budget for the profit of MIC and turning a blind eye on everything that could improve the living conditions of the people.
China's policies stay in stark contrast to this: they strive to make the WHOLE society thrive so that 1.4 billion people never face poverty, hunger and homelessness. China's economic expansion might be considered aggressive by jealous enemies but the Chinese never wage wars, don't surround competitors with military bases and don't try to coerce "allies" into hostile actions against their rivals. They build roads, railways, ports and factories throughout the world, helping nations get out of poverty, like they did with their own population.
This is the biggest difference between the two approaches and the healing of the US wounds should start from within.
Nice to see a little history injected into trade policy discussion!
Trade policy debate thus far has been remarkably dominated by theory without reference to historical reality.
Unilateral disarmament is generally terrible strategy (as Lind discusses in this piece).
Dear Professor Lind. When you write “a localized mercantilism may survive within the integrated unit because of the division of labor among manufacturing and commodity-producing regions, as in the U.S. between the Civil War and the New Deal”, respectfully, you’re retrojecting a level of economic central planning, continental integration and central assignment of roles that simply did not exist in that period.
America during those decades a landscape of massive internal diversification and redundancy. Large swaths of the West, Midwest, and Northeast all maintained overlapping mixes of mining, timber, agriculture, manufacturing, rail-repair, machine shops, foundries, and later electrical and chemical works, and lots more; often at city or county scale, not merely state scale. This redundancy was a deliberate aspect of the Old Republic’s decentralized political economy, with capital grounded locally and states controlling corporate law, banking, and infrastructure, regions built parallel and competing industrial bases rather than submitting to any continent-wide division of labor.
It seems the US neglect of enforcement against mercantilist behavior up until 1990 could have been motivated by recreating and sustaining German and Japanese industrial power to confront the USSR. However, with the fall of the USSR, rather than recalibrating the US doubled down with the WTO. If so, is the WTO framework something which needs to be addressed?
Many thanks for such an informative and topical essay. I barely escaped (British) High School and found it quite accessible. We live in such a fascinating era, but there is so much to understand. 🙏👍
"China.. has destroyed political and popular support for a neoliberal trading system worldwide with its aggressive use of strategies that seek to maximize the Chinese share of crucial manufacturing industries at the expense of trading partners"? Come, come!
The US began deindustrializing n 1954 and the share of Americans involved in manufacturing has declined in an almost straight, 45º line since then. China's WTO accession made no difference to the decline.
Western countries were eager to get rid of dirty, capital-intensive, labor-intensive industries and China was eager to get them.
Michael, excellent explication of history and on concepts in action. I offer one minor enhancement on the origins of Hamilton's 1791 Report on Manufactures: Hamilton produced the report in response to a congressional resolution asking him to prepare a plan that would realize President Washington's aspirations as expressed in his first annual address to Congress:
A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories as tend to render them independent of others for essential, particularly military, supplies.
Mr Lind seems a tad defensive:). As always on Commonplace, there is plenty of thin-skinned criticism of fellow elites, just not much commentary on what the leader of the "new" right is actually doing in the real world. Meanwhile, the "new" right agenda is unfolding before us in spectacular fashion, led by the movements founder and intellectual lodestar-Don. Let's all enjoy the spectacle, lord knows we need humor in our lives these days.
Good luck America.
Karl, I liked Mr. Lind’s essay precisely because it did provide commentary relevant to the Trump administration’s policies and the intellectual tools needed to relieve its fearless leader of his intellectual duties.
So, while I applaud your enthusiasm for humor, the laughter I hear from you is coming from the peanut gallery.
Am I mistaken? Or did I miss the part where you addressed what Mr. Lind actually did say as opposed to what he did not?
Jim I'll say this for Mr Lind. He's eloquent in his effort to retrofit an intellectual framework around Don's taco trade schizophrenia. And his history lesson, though barely relevant, is mildly interesting nonetheless. But, like much Commonplace commentary, it has an "other than that Mrs Lincoln" feel. And I'll readily cop to the humor accusation. I just have to laugh at the stupidity and incoherence of Don and his acolytes. It's just doggone funny stuff!
Oh yes I caught his passing references to the administration's strategery, such as it is. But, as I reflect on the public descriptions of this strategery offered by Don, Bessent, Hassett, Lutnick, et al, I struggle for the coherence ascribed to it by Mr Lind. All I hear are random, incoherent comments by Don, followed by embarrassing attempts at cleanup. Am I missing something?