Free Trade has become an article of faith among Conservatives. Many on the right are blind to the disaster unfettered Free Trade has done to America. Wages have declined, Manufacturing discriminated and America’s living standards have declined. I was under the impression Conservatism was concerned about the economic well being of the nation.
So it’s stuns me that many Conservatives view this as Conservatism. The truth is Free Trade is Progressives. Just like Conservatives have adopted Wilsonian Democracy spreading as their foreign policy, they have adopted another Progressive ideology as Conservative. Free Trade was promoted by none other than, Woodrow Wilson himself.
With the North winning the Civil War, Republican dominance was assured over the Democrats. Republicans continued to dominate American politics until around the early 20th century. President William McKinley stated the United States’ stance under the Republican Party as thus:
“Under free trade the trader is the master and the producer the slave. Protection is but the law of nature, the law of self-preservation, of self-development, of securing the highest and best destiny of the race of man. [It is said] that protection is immoral…. Why, if protection builds up and elevates 63,000,000 [the U.S. population] of people, the influence of those 63,000,000 of people elevates the rest of the world. We cannot take a step in the pathway of progress without benefiting mankind everywhere. Well, they say, ‘Buy where you can buy the cheapest’…. Of course, that applies to labor as to everything else. Let me give you a maxim that is a thousand times better than that, and it is the protection maxim: ‘Buy where you can pay the easiest.’ And that spot of earth is where labor wins its highest rewards.”
Southern Democrats gradually rebuilt their party, and allied themselves with Northern Progressives. They had many differences but both were staunchly opposed to the great corporate trusts that had built up, and Republican corruption was endemic.[citation needed] This marriage of convenience to face a common enemy reinvigorated the Democratic Party, which catapulted back into power. Northern Progressives sought free trade to undermine the power base of Republicans – Woodrow Wilson would admit as much in a speech to Congress. A brief resurgence by Republicans in the 1920s was disastrous for them. Woodrow Wilson’s ideological understudy[citation needed], Franklin Roosevelt, would essentially blame the Great Depression upon the protectionist policies exemplified by the previous Republican President,Herbert Hoover.
That’s right, Free Trade is a Leftist concept. It is part of the Left’s goal to implement a global Socialist state. Free Trade destroys small companies and empowers huge Corporate entities. These entities in turn make alliances with governments to keep competitors out of business. Hence the result of Free Trade is Bigger Government, something Conservatism used to opposed until The Bush years. In fact, the last real Conservative President, Ronald Reagan was no free trader!
When President Reagan imposed a 100 percent tariff on selected Japanese electronics in 1987, he and the press gave the impression that this was an act of desperation. Pictured was a long-forbearing president whose patience was exhausted by the recalcitrant and conniving Japanese. After trying for years to elicit some fairness out of them, went the story, the usually good-natured president had finally had enough.
When newspapers and television networks announced the tariffs, the media reminded the public that such restraints were imposed by a staunch free trader. The less-than-subtle message was that if “Free Trader” Ronald Reagan thought the tariff necessary, then Japan surely deserved it. After more than seven years in office, Ronald Reagan is still widely regarded as a devoted free trader. A typical reference is that of Mark Shields, a Washington Post columnist, to Reagan’s “blind devotion to the doctrine of free trade.”
If President Reagan has a devotion to free trade, it surely must be blind, because he has been off the mark most of the time. Only short memories and a refusal to believe one’s own eyes would account for the view that President Reagan is a free trader. Calling oneself a free trader is not the same thing as being a free trader. Nor does a free- trade position mean that the president, but not Congress, should have the power to impose trade sanctions. Instead, a president deserves the title of free trader only if his efforts demonstrate an attempt to remove trade barriers at home and prevent the imposition of new ones.
By this standard, the Reagan administration has failed to promote free trade. Ronald Reagan by his actions has become the most protectionist president since Herbert Hoover, the heavyweight champion of protectionists.
That’s right, Ronald Reagan was not a fanatical fan of Free Trade. He knew it lowered the wages and living standards of Americans. Reagan also knew that it destroys small business, empowers big government and sets the ground work for a Global regime. It actually promoted the goals of Marxists, Communists and Progressives he opposed. This is not a Conservative position, they believes in National sovereignty and economic opportunities for its citizens.
One myth the Free Trade crowd promotes is that Smoot-Hawley worsened the Great Depression. Well that is a total and outright lie. This myth was started by FDR, who was no Conservative and a Progressive. He created this talking point to discredit people opposed to the Leftist Free Trade ideology. It’s ironic that Conservatives who hate FDR, are repeating one of his lies!
The debate over free trade is riddled with myth after myth. One that keeps resurfacing, no matter how many times it is discredited, is the idea that protectionism caused the Great Depression. One occasionally even hears that this same protectionism — specifically, the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930 — was responsible in significant part for World War Two! This is nonsense dreamed up for propaganda purposes by free traders, and it can easily be debunked.
Let’s start by reminding ourselves of a basic fact: The Depression’s cause was monetary. The Federal Reserve had allowed the money supply to balloon excessively during the late 1920s, causing it to pile up in the stock market as a bubble. The Fed then panicked, miscalculated, and let the money supply collapse by a third by 1933, depriving the economy of the liquidity it needed to breathe. Trade had nothing to do with it.
The Smoot-Hawley tariff was simply too small a policy change to have so large an effect as triggering a depression. For a start, it applied to only about one-third of America’s trade: about 1.3 percent of our GDP. One point three percent! America’s average tariff on goods subject to tariff went from 44.6 to 53.2 percent — not a very big jump at all. America’s tariffs were higher in almost every year from 1821 to 1914. Our tariffs went up in 1861, 1864, 1890, and 1922 without producing global depressions, and the great recessions of 1873 and 1893 spread worldwide without needing the help of any tariff increases.
World trade did indeed decline, but this was due to the Depression itself, not higher American tariffs. This is no surprise, as declines in the values of the currencies of America’s major trading partners wiped away much of the effect of the tariff anyway.
Why many Conservatives don’t realize the damage Free Trade and Globalization has done to America is amazing. It has reduced our wages, living standards and national sovereignty. Globalization empowers International institutions ate the expense of the Nation State. This is a Progressive ideology and not far removed from what Marxists and Communists want.
This shows the extent of which Progressive ideas have infiltrated modern Conservative. In fact, the Modern Conservative movement and the Republican Party are actually Center-Left and resemble the 1950’s/1960’s Democrats. Where they diverge from the New Democrats is in their attitude for America. But the truth is both the Republicans and Democrats are Leftists. The GOP is Center-Left and the Democrats Far Left.
This puts people like me on the Right in a conundrum. If we don’t support the Republicans, then Tranzi American hating Democrats take power. But the Republicans are Leftists as well, but at least they don’t hate America. In the current situation, those of us on the Right should back the GOP in 2012 to get ride of Obama. But afterwards, we should start a New true Rightwing Party that believes in Fiscal responsibility, National Sovereignty, Border Security, Strong Dollar, Tax/Regulatory reform and a Jacksonian Western Hemispheric Economic interest based foreign policy. However first we must defeat Obama, then we should break off from the GOP and go our own way afterwards.
Free Trade and Globalism is not Conservative, it’s Progressive. Protectionism is not the solution, instead we need to implement policies that benefit America as a nation and not prove some academic theories , Multinational Corporations who support Global Socialism or empowering global institutions. We need real Conservative solutions, not Progressive masquerading as Conservative.
Tags: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Free Trade, Globalization, Woodrow Wilson
