Yesterday I did a thread showing that Free Trade and Globalization is Progressive in origins. The debate was civil and everyone brought their A game. Well Guggi brought this little nugget. Karl Marx supported Free Trade. His reasoning was because it would destroy the Nation State and create brotherhood of workers.
We have shown what sort of brotherhood free trade begets between the different classes of one and the same nation. The brotherhood which free trade would establish between the nations of the Earth would hardly be more fraternal. To call cosmopolitan exploitation universal brotherhood is an idea that could only be engendered in the brain of the bourgeoisie. All the destructive phenomena which unlimited competition gives rise to within one country are reproduced in more gigantic proportions on the world market. We need not dwell any longer upon free trade sophisms on this subject, which are worth just as much as the arguments of our prize-winners Messrs. Hope, Morse, and Greg.
{….]
But, in general, the protective system of our day is conservative, while the free trade system is destructive. It breaks up old nationalities and pushes the antagonism of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie to the extreme point. In a word, the free trade system hastens the social revolution. It is in this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, that I vote in favor of free trade.
That great Free Trader Karl Marx! Amazing, many Conservative support a Marxist-Progressive idea. This is because many Conservative have bought the Progressive worldview without realizing. Free Trade is not a Conservative idea and to silence those who oppose it as not being Conservative is ridiculous. In reality Free Trade skeptics are taking the true Conservative position. Blind support of any idea is not good for any movement. Especially if evidence has shown that that idea has failed. Why defend an idea supported on Karl Marx.
Tags: Free Trade, Globalization, Karl Marx
