To decide this matter, the French farmers want the capital to be in Paris where they have immense political power. But for other issues, such as attracting European Union citizens to come to spend a summer as a tourist on their farms, they want all the benefits enduring to a citizen of the European Union and they love the rules set forth in Brussels.
We conservatives understand the arguments made by Milton Friedman that trade among nations benefits both the buyers and sellers because the more efficient producer of goods is benefited by the sale and the consumer is benefited by the lower price and higher quality. But the European, especially French farmers, argue that other values should not be disregarded.
I live in Bavaria which, believe it or not, drove out Walmart. The Germans both officially and by consensus concluded that German retailers, even mom-and-pop retailers, offered more civilized working conditions and a good way of life for the moms and pops but Walmart, with its presumed advantages to consumers, undermined a German way of life.
When I first came to Germany I was appalled at the restrictions on shopping times. In those days if the holiday fell on a Friday or Monday and you didn't stock up on your groceries you could be out of luck for three full days. Today, these restrictions have been relieved and shopping approaches the American model a little more. But still, down here in Bavaria the assumption is that the consumer will buy his foodstuffs during regular hours to the same degree as he would buy them if they were available 24/7. The retail salesperson needs his home life too. The Bavarians might be right or they might be wrong but who should decide?
Should the decision be made in the municipal village city hall, or in Munich the capital of Bavaria, or in Berlin, the capital of Germany, or in Brussels or some other city which has some function in the European Union? Should the decision be made by some supranational entity created to arbitrate trade disputes among nations like GAAT?
Does our answer change if we're dealing with a predatory, mercantilist trade partner?
I have been arguing for some time that liberals go forum shopping when they want to win an argument. We might say that the American Civil War was an example of liberals deciding that decisions about issues like tariffs or slavery should be made in Washington rather than in Richmond or Atlanta. Certainly, the antidemocratic aspects of the European Union demonstrate the left's penchant for getting its way by changing the rules of the game. We conservatives instinctively want to do away with political solutions to economic problems, preferring to let the market sort the matter out. So we instinctively argue that the French farmers should look in the mirror and find out why their produce is so expensive. We instinctively say that the farmer should not be able to get a politician to tell the consumer that he may not have a German product, or that he must pay an excise tax to get it.
Yet we are making the same arguments in America today, or, rather, Donald Trump is making these arguments. Donald Trump is saying, there is more at stake here than the consumer getting a cheaper or a better car, we must consider the automobile assembly worker's job lost to Japan. He points to China and says, here is a predatory economy, a mercantilist economy, which is hollowing out American manufacturing and we are not considering the needs of our workers but only of a few megacorporations dealing with China. The matter gets worse when we jigger of our Constitution so that trade deals negotiated by that hard-nosed negotiator, Barack Obama, need only be affirmed by the House and the Senate instead of by two thirds of the Senate. In effect, we seek a political solution to an economic problem, we have done so by forum shopping, and we have even rigged the forum.
These are not easy questions, but it is easy to say that our current economic relationship with the likes of China must be fixed or more than automobile assembly workers or assemblers of televisions and telephones will be ruined.
What is the difference between those who object to Obama selling the country out to the Chinese and French farmers blocking the roads? Are all these issues to be decided in the streets as the French farmers would do? Do we have a responsible government, meaning do we have a responsible Republican Party because we assume Obama is not motivated by any patriotic impulse, to negotiate these matters to an agreeable conclusion?
