Posted on 11/25/2002 8:15:37 AM PST by SAMWolf
I hope they don't kick me out of the Republican Party for this.
But free trade is a bad idea.
For years it hasn't set right with me, and I've tried to figure out why. And now I know. It's because it violates a simple principle of life.
And that is self-reliance.
International free trade, while certainly necessary and useful to an extent, can easily be overemphasized to such a degree that it jeopardizes a country's economic self-interest and national security.
The United States is a good example.
But first, let's look at Mexico.
Under the North American Free Trade Agreement, all Mexican protections against American or Canadian agricultural imports are about to disappear. That means cheaper Canadian and American farm products are going to flood Mexico.
And Mexican farms are going to close down. The impact on Mexican agriculture is going to be immense.
Which means Mexico is going to be less capable of supplying its own needs. And it means a ton of farm workers are going to be out of work and headed north. And that's not good for anybody.
Just like it's no good that the United States has a dramatic trade deficit, that it buys far more from overseas than it sells. And that there are entire sections of the American economy which are dependent on foreign goods. For whole product lines, there simply are no American manufacturers anymore. From electronic goods to clothing to steel, we don't make things anymore.
And American corporations are closing domestic factories to shift manufacturing overseas.
All of which fits perfectly into the world of free trade.
And all of which screws us royally.
Because independence is good and interdependence is bad. Because interdependence is the same as reliance and that is the opposite of self-reliance.
And history teaches that -- without exception -- prosperity and security require national self-reliance. Americans should eat American agricultural products and use American manufactured products and channel their income back into the economy that produced it -- the American economy. When a nation becomes reliant on foreign products -- as the United States clearly is -- its comfort and peace are held hostage by the producers of those foreign products.
If a nation cannot produce what it needs -- as the United States now cannot -- it is in a precarious position that weakens and enslaves it.
We will be weakened as we exchange our prosperity -- hard currency -- for foreign products, and we will be enslaved as our national policy inevitably must be tailored to preserve our access to foreign goods. These are truths which have been understood and implemented around the world for centuries. To abandon them now is to abandon national self-interest and to doom the United States to premature but certain decline.
And it is to bring the same fate to many nations of the world.
In developing countries, lingering poverty and delayed development are tied directly to a failure to be nationally self-reliant. When nations feed themselves, they do not starve. When they manufacture their own goods, they don't go without.
When they understand that their consumer dollars must be recycled into their own economies, they do not long linger in recession or unemployment.
Free trade serves a very few at the top of international corporations, but it does not serve the average American. Rather, it takes away his job and his nation's strength.
Certainly, the flow of goods and produce around the globe is needful and beneficial, but so is protection, and buttering your own bread first. The sense of national economic identity must not be lost, and neither should the commitment to protecting American prosperity -- even at the cost of limiting free trade.
Our first obligation is to feed, house, clothe and prosper American families. Every thing else comes second. That must be our attitude. Just as Mexico and every other nation must have the same attitude about its people and its economy.
Independence is good, interdependence is bad.
Self-reliance is the key to prosperity -- for individuals and nations.
Our first obligation is to maintain a free economic and political environment in which American families can feed, clothe, house and prosper themselves.
This Lonsberry can't be a real conservative...
Probably as much as he'd appreciate a son spouting the same nonsense as Hitler with regard to the relation between nations and individuals. In case you didn't realize, you father fought for a nation that exists for individuals (defending their liberty and property), not the other way around.
"When you subsidize poverty and failure, you get more of both." (emphasis added)
~~~James Dales Davidson (National Taxpayers Union)
"A policy of subsidizing failures will end in an economy strewn with capital-guzzling industries long past their time of profitability - old companies that cannot create jobs themselves, but can stand in the way of job creation."
~~~George Gilder
"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidise it." (emphasis added)
~~~Ronald Reagan
"The primary reason for a tariff is that it enables the exploitation of the domestic consumer by a process indistinguishable from sheer robbery."
~~~Albert Jay Nock
"When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators."
~~~P.J. O'Rourke
"Perhaps the removal of trade restrictions throughout the world would do more for the cause of universal peace than can any political union of peoples separated by trade barriers."
~~~Frank Chodorov
"When goods don't cross borders, soldiers will."
~~~Fredric Bastiat
Sorry to spoil the mood, but I would be happy if you would point out where precisely I have been inconsistent across the board.
To them, "Free" trade is only that if it has gooberment approval...
Nafta and treaties of the same kind are only a step in the right direction if they make trade freer than before. It has been said that Nafta, correctly agreed to, could have been written on the back of a matchbook.
Low tariffs on both sides. Pick a number, make it low.
Article I, Section 8.
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises...To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;...
Our great nation was founded on principles of individual freedom, liberty and opportunity, NOT corporate freedom, liberty and opportunity. The excesses of unbridled, laissez-faire Capitalism can be just as oppressive of individual freedom and opportunity as authoritarian Communism.
Of the few that do, that is obviously unpatriotic, this is not what we are discussing.
many are eager to abandon qualified and eager native born US citizens in favor of foreign contractors.
Now, ask yourself why. Should companies hire American workers, and eat the loss because of uneducated voters? They must stay in business, and keep the existing American workers they can afford. So the minimum wage forces them to seek outside labor.
"We are infinitely better off without treaties of commerce with any nation."
--Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1815.
"The prohibiting duties we lay on all articles of foreign manufacture which prudence requires us to establish at home, with the patriotic determination of every good citizen to use no foreign article which can be made within ourselves without regard to difference of price, secures us against a relapse into foreign dependency."
--Thomas Jefferson to Jean Baptiste Say, 1815.
"I have come to a resolution myself as I hope every good citizen will, never again to purchase any article of foreign manufacture which can be had of American make, be the difference of price what it may."
--Thomas Jefferson to B. S. Barton, 1815. ME 19:223
In order for free trade to work, the trading societies must be free. They aren't, therefore "free trade" is a misnomer. What passes for free trade today is highly regulated and controlled by elites. More goods would be produced in the United States if we eliminated unnecessary regulations and significantly reduced taxation, both of which are ultimately inflationary, but that won't happen because these things benefit elites by reducing competition. However, there will come a time when the elites will no longer be able export inflation (e.g. sending factories overseas) or import deflation (e.g. migrant workers), and the economy will crash. If enough people lose their jobs, this crash will begin as a deflationary cycle. However, when the government continues to spend as much or more in an effort to keep the economy afloat, we will experience a hyperinflationary depression.
The above is the only intelligent post in this thread so far. Everything else has been pure, 100% ideological claptrap.
"Free" trade has become a religion which is completely out of touch with reality - that is to say, real politics and real economics, not pure theory. "Free" trade ideologues do not understand and do not want to understand how the world really works; they are merely front men for the elites who are currently profiting from "free" trade and globalism. When the sh!t hits the fan, the "free" trade ideologues will be left holding the bag, whilst the elites they shilled for will quickly switch to some other ideology that better serves their interests.
Then why isn't the economy really booming now? Why has unemployment gone up, more than a decade into NAFTA which should have benefitted Mexicans, more are flooding over the border than ever before, why are people saying their 401K plans are losing money? All this global economy doesn't seem to be doing what you all claim.
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If I had wanted to say that I would have come right out and said that. Economics isn't just about what people are capable of performing. It's about what needs to be done and about sustaining an economy.
How about a tariff of zero? That's a pretty low number.
It has been said that Nafta, correctly agreed to, could have been written on the back of a matchbook.
Agreed, or just removed the checkpoints or something. It never WAS about FREE trade, only about the interests who control the polticians... which AIN'T we the people!
I have also never addressed the issue of corporations. You seem to be confused about that or have jumped to a conclusion.
The excesses of unbridled, laissez-faire Capitalism can be just as oppressive of individual freedom and opportunity as authoritarian Communism.
Capitalism does not address the coerrectness or incorrectness of government granting corporations the various immunities they enjoy. Two separate issues. Don't make the mistake of combining them.
They even pretend that we have free trade which isn't even close to true because Americans cannot compete with Chinese for jobs because we have a much larger cost of living in large part to the huge number of taxes we must pay.
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These people are spoiled, stupid, and nuts. They have seized upon a half-baked trade ideology that supports their mental limitations by allowing them to spout cliches.
Huh? Where did you get that definition?
"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!"
- The Wizard, The Wizard of Oz
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