In West Germany and here in Berlin, there took place an economic miracle, the Wirtschaftswunder. Adenauer, Erhard, Reuter, and other leaders understood the practical importance of liberty -- that just as truth can flourish only when the journalist is given freedom of speech, so prosperity can come about only when the farmer and businessman enjoy economic freedom. The German leaders -- the German leaders reduced tariffs, expanded free trade, lowered taxes. From 1950 to 1960 alone, the standard of living in West Germany and Berlin doubled.
Free trade destroyed the British Empire? Hello, they were mercantilist.
It was Big Government—or more to the point—socialism and an attempt to give the people more and more stuff out of the public treasury. A bit of public sharing is good—but when it reaches a tipping point it topples the whole structure. Governments can’t be all things to all people—why? people will take advantage and grab for as much as possible—this is the poison of democracy and one that has killed many a nation state and republic over the centuries. Its about balance of power. We are way out of balance as is most of the west.
Clement Attlee.
So called Free Trade has contributed to the ruin of the American economy. Industry after industry simply gone. Millions in manufacturing jobs gone merely to satisfy a bunch of cosmopolitan fanatics bemused by an 18th century theory.
It was emigration. The best and brightest crossed the pond and the rest is history.
The decline of Rome also reflected, to a major extent, a genetic deterioration, caused in part by the failure of the original Roman stock to reproduce their numbers. By the fall, they were estimated to be down to 10% of the population. (One quite plausible theory as to why, is that the Roman upper-classes stored their food and wine in lead vessels, while the lower classes, often of foreign origin, stored theirs in earthenware. Lead poisoning can lead to sterility.)
This is not to say that paternalistic Government, which taxes the productive to pay for the less productive, does not contribute to such declines. If you look closer to home, the effect of the Welfare State on the gene pool has been horrendous. Successful Americans' birthrate has fallen to a very low rate, while the subsidized births of those dependent upon Welfare have soared. You can see the immediate effect in the relatively declining school performance over the past two generations.
Who was buying all those excess VW’s and Leica Camera’s? US Consumers? Free Trade was a good deal for both sides. Germany got an economic jumpstart while the US got a stable West German Government and a staunch ally. For the US it was a “cost of empire”. Those costs have long since exceeded the benefit as Germany has been pursuing their own foreign policy and is often at cross-purpose with US interests.
Now we are bombing Libya in the name of NATO. I’d say the tail has begun waiving the dog.
Free trade is moronic.
The United States didn’t overtake every major industrialized country in Europe in the 19th and early 20th century because of free trade.
There was a time when the entire federal government was financed by tariffs and domestic, narrowly targeted excise taxes.
Free trade has been good for other countries, because the US unilaterally lowered its tariffs while they raised theirs and other non-tariff barriers against us.
China, India and Brazil, as well as many other developing countries, are booming because Americans are idiots and will unilaterally disarm against foreigners. They got rich on the backs of the American consumer while discriminating against us.
And no, they are not more capitalistic than the United States, despite the misguided free traitor rhetoric around here.
I would just like to point out that “free trade” is not the same thing as “free international trade”. We need free trade internally as well as externally, and that includes a balance of taxes and unfunded mandates between the two.
The manufacturers in China have fewer taxes and unfunded mandates then our domestic manufactures do, therefore their manufacturers will beat us every time.
I am for fewer domestic taxes and unfunded mandates. Perhaps there a some (few!) domestic unfunded mandates that are good, and perhaps we should tax incoming goods to equalize these, and spend the income on behalf of the source economy.
The best thing, of course, would be to ruthlessly reduce all wealth redistributing functions of our government.
bkmk
What a coincidence. I am on page 153 of The Decline and Fall of the British Empire 1781-1997. The author is Piers Brendon, whom I had never heard of. The book is fascinating so far. He has the decline starting when Britain lost the first of its’ colonies, The United States.
Neither. Britain was basically bankrupt after WWII and began a retreat from its colonies. They were no longer the superpower, we were, and they didn’t have the prestige or money to hold their empire together. The world was realigning US vs. USSR instead of by traditional colonial empires.
In any case, they weren’t able to implement their big government until after it was obvious the empire was going away. For example, Indian independence and the withdrawal from the Palestine Mandate (Israel and Jordan, plus parts of Iraq and Saudi Arabia) were already in the works before the NHS was created. I would say the cost of big government probably helped accelerate the later dismantling, as did free trade supplanting the mercantilism that formerly brought huge amounts of money into the government coffers.
Free trade helped them make a comeback after they'd destroyed their own physical plant and that of most of the rest of Europe.
But if you want to understand the rise of Germany in a broader perspective you have to look at the protectionism of 1870-1914, which did much to make Germany Europe's dominant economy.
Once you have all the elements for a modern economy you may be able to benefit from a free trade environment. Those who are still struggling to make it, tend to go in for protectionism while they are still developing industrially.
apparently the sucking sound from the loss of 10,000,000 jobs has gone unnoticed.
I not at all convinced that Germany serves as a good anology. First of all, they EXPORT more than they import, unlike the U.S. or U.K. Running sizable trade deficits (+) is a boost to any country.
Methinks perhaps it was the fact of being an Empire that, ultimately, destroyed the British Empire. The straw that broke the camel’s back was, of course, WW2; however, WW2 did the breaking because it put the British into the untenable position of having to defend a globe-spanning empire against multiple aggressors (the various axis powers) and having to do so with various colonial populations who were growing restive and were tired of being treated as the “subjects of” the Empire as opposed to full members of it, and who wanted to throw off the Imperial “embrace.”
After all, in my view, it was not mere coincidence that Gandhi started the Quit India Movement - one of the more direct demands that the British leave India - in 1942, when WW2 was in full swing and the Axis powers were at their zenith.
So, I suppose that in a way it was “big government” that finally brought down the British Empire because the demands of Empire and of defending that Empire simply required that the Imperial government spend too much of the society’s wealth on unproductive actions to protect colonial populations that really did not appreciate said “protection.”