The point was that politics should be understood as the clashing of competing interests to win a share of the spoils. A laissez-faire approach to the economy would prevent the government from shaping the economy, or its own spending, to favor one political group over another. Similarly, a pure libertarian would have international trade as "free" trade in which competing interests would fight it out without government regulations and the more efficient producer would win market share.
Whether for good or ill, we have not now and indeed never have had a pure laissez-faire approach to the economy nor have we had unfettered free trade. Our colonial and revolutionary history can be understood as a contest between sections in continental America and in revolt against British mercantilism. These competing interests have contended against each other ever since.
Lincoln imposed a federal income tax in 1862 to pay for the Civil War but the constitutional amendment under Woodrow Wilson in 1913 created a ravenous beast that funneled so much of America's wealth through Washington DC that it became inevitable that rent seekers and social engineers would have the funds and the power to move the country entirely away from any relationship to a laissez-faire system. Lyndon Johnson accelerated the process and government regulation in the marketplace has now become the standard way that we determine who gets what, where and when.
Similarly, free trade has given way to "fair" trade. The ideal that the most efficient producer would provide goods and services at the cheapest price has been superseded by other social engineering values. We see this in the language in this article.
For example, "U.S. trade laws, we can raise wages and help level the playing field for American workers, farmers, ranchers, and job-creators.”
"In line with the working-class appeals of the “Build Back Better” approach to growing the economy, United States trade representative Katherine Tai said at the start of her tenure she would pursue “a worker-centered trade policy.”
" Biden administration’s focus on equity and environmental issues."
While the government is busy dictating how we should conduct internal and external commerce, we at least had an understanding that we must successfully lobby for our share or perish. We competed against others according to a series of acceptable features that advocates of one position or another sought to impress upon the public, or at least successfully lobby legislators and regulators, to favor the advocates' interests.
But politicians, if nothing else, are infinitely wily and capable of crafting new overarching themes which can utterly change the way policies affect who gets what, where and when.
For example, the American South was quite inventive in justifying slavery. But today, after we have deplored this slavery and died to end it, there seems to be very little interest in affecting trade relations with China because of the slavery of Muslims there.
An overarching theme of "climate change" has swept away much of the traditional matrix in which we fashion our trade policy. It has long been clear that climate change can be exploited to dominate our internal policies.
So when Trump undertook to change American posture on the trade with China and elsewhere he was introducing a new theme that would radically change the way we did business. The degree to which he was unsuccessful might well be accounted for by the fact that he was conducting a mini revolution that had not entirely found its footing.
I would argue that Trump was twice impeached and multiple times indicted because it was his trade policies, even more than his domestic policies, that posed an existential threat to established interests. In other words, in attacking Chinese mercantilism on behalf of American national security and American national prosperity, especially manufacturing, he was breaking a lot of rice bowls.
The likes of Mitch McConnell, who should've been supporting his party's President, found it as easy as did southern slaveholders to rationalize opposition to Trump because McConnell's marital status gained him a relationship with a worldwide Chinese shipping company. We have not seen even the tip of the iceberg of the sorted corruption between our legislators and China. Nor have we seen the full extent of the corruption between Hollywood, academia and so many vital parts of America and China.
In all these industries rice bowls were threatened by Trump.
When we as conservatives ponder our proper position respecting trade, whether fair or free, we should do so knowing that trade, no less than domestic politics, has much to do with who gets what, where and when.
