Thomas Sowell, Middle East oil and free trade
Though one doubts that he would endorse this blog, Thomas Sowell remains one of my favorite observers of contemporary events. Like Edmund Burke’s, Dr. Sowell’s conservative writings ascend sometimes to a rare plane of philosophy, and even at other times his writings are nearly always well worth reading. That writer will need little further introduction here.
Dr. Sowell is not a doctrinaire free trader but a free trader nevertheless, thus at least partially opposed to this blog’s basic stance. On Iraq, he writes recently:
Both individuals within Iraq and countries throughout the Middle East must make life-and-death choices, based on whether they are safer to cooperate with the United States or to align themselves with the terrorists.
If the United States is here today and gone tomorrow, while the terrorists have already demonstrated their staying power and tenacity, we can expect a catastrophic realignment of forces in a region whose oil is the lifeblood of economies around the world.
With fanatical extremists controlling both Middle East oil and nuclear weapons, what happens in the 2008 elections can look like small potatoes compared to the horrors we bequeath our children.
Excellent observations, all. One sincerely grants Dr. Sowell’s somber point regarding Middle East nuclear weapons, which pose an ominous new threat of dimly seen proportions to all the civilized world. What concrete action the U.S. should take, if any, regarding Islamic nukes is a tortuously difficult question which may lack any right answer and which is left for another article to consider. Regarding Middle East oil, however, I have a question now. To the extent that Middle East oil is what entraps the United States in Middle East politics and warfare, to the extent that the United States depends on Middle East oil, if Middle East oil is the “lifeblood” of our economy, then how has all this come to pass? Who got us into such a vulnerable position of dependency in the first place? Who, indeed? Were they not the free traders?
Within living memory, the U.S. was one of the world’s great energy exporters. Now, surely, there are more reasons we no longer are that than lack of tariffs, but no external factor adequately explains America’s general loss of the robust national self-sufficiency she so recently had. Should Americans fail to cultivate that robust national self-sufficiency again, if we turned our backs on our own history, then just whom would the free traders have us invade next, to keep the international traffic in goods and services flowing?
No one denies that international trade brings significant benefits, but it is high time that the free traders fairly accounted the costs as well. A rational U.S. policy would seriously consider implementing Dr. Sowell’s Middle East policy recommendations, and at the same time, would reinstitute a moderately stiff, traditionally American tariff to limit our country’s economic exposure to the next such unforeseen international crisis. There is no reason, no excuse for us to have exposed our nation to such terrible foreign instability. Our nation remains exposed largely because of the fanatical post-World War II devotion of too many American policymakers to the anti-American dogma of international free trade.
HJH
February 1st, 2007 at 8:09 pm
Excellent points! Free Traders are unwilling to take responsibility for their numerous calamities, one being American dependence on imported oil. The hubris of Free Trader ideology prevents it’s starry-eyed disciples from owning up to their disasters. Instead they make the situation worse by heeping more outsourcing on the Nation to sink our industrial infrastructure into oblivion, also our sovereignty.
What would the blogmaster here say to the fantasical(I admit) notion of an ‘alliance’ of economic nationalists with the Green Left who also loathe Free Trade(though for different reasons) to take on these minions who are outsourcing our beloved Republic?
February 2nd, 2007 at 10:04 am
Mitch writes:
This is an important question in my view. I am no political tactician, so I do not pretend fully to have the answer. If you have an answer, then I should be very interested to read it.
Still, let me say the following. Serious economic nationalists are not interested only in making philosophical points, as you well know. The trouble our beloved Republic is in is grave. Politically, we want to win, hence a judicious mix of principle and practicality is indicated. To win, we must forge an actual Congressional majority; and, realistically, such a majority must include some Congressmen who do not fully share our point of view.
To the extent that we and the Green Left oppose Free Trade, though for different reasons, then of course we should find every possible avenue to cooperate with them to impede the inimical work of the free traders. However let us be frank: too many on the Green Left loathe our beloved Republic almost as much as they loathe Free Trade.
Yet even natural enemies can, and very much should, find common cause in adversity. So, yes, in the present political environment, I do tend to feel that we economic nationalists should cooperate with and back the Green Left’s antiglobalization efforts. When they speak of poverty sweatshops in Indonesia and rain-forest clearcuts in Brazil, you and I needn’t stand and cheer, but we needn’t argue, either; and if we can do something to save the Brazilian jungle, or whatever, and if so doing wins us the political alliance we need, then by all means, let us proceed, with judicious goodwill and with both eyes wide open. It does not demean us to admit that, when those Green people hit the streets of Seattle to protest the WTO meetings there in 1999, though they wore earrings in strange places, they were aiding our cause. The Green Left is not a wholly insignificant political force, and our side needs all the political help it can get at the present time. Yes, right now, by all means, let us cooperate. And, after all, saving the Brazilian jungle—though maybe not a high priority for you and me—is an end which, in itself, does have some worth, even to Americans.
As far as the prospect of a more enduring alliance with the Green Left goes, personally I have difficulty envisioning it, though I stand fully open to persuasion in the matter. Despite all that has happened, I feel strongly that our best natural allies are found in the rank and file of the local Republican parties, spread county by county across the nation. You and I have no power to bring the Green Left and the local Republican committeemen together; that’s mixing oil and water, so to speak. And the local Republican committee is a far more potent political force than the Green Left is or ever will be in any case.
There is another political force, also stronger than the Green Left, which I feel can be married to the local Republican committee in the long term, though it won’t be easy. That force is organized industrial labor. Now, I realize: long-time Republicans blanch when one mentions the prospect of allying with the labor unions, but I believe that that feeling is mostly a relic of 1960s and 70s politics, when the labor unions opposed Republicans for fundamental reasons. With respect to the industrial labor unions, those old reasons simply no longer apply. Attend a meeting at the local industrial union hall, and you’ll find yourself standing along with the union brotherhood to recite with gusto the Pledge of Allegiance to kick off the meeting. And do they recite the Pledge at the annual shareholder’s meeting of XYZ Corp., for whom the union members work? Not on your life.
The Green Left didn’t recite the Pledge in Seattle, either. They burned the Flag, rather. So, while I completely agree with you that we should ally tactically with them, I tend to be skeptical of the prospects for long-term cooperation. On the other hand, it would profit us not to antagonize the Green Left more than we have to, because, realistically, politically, we probably are going to need their help.
If you’ve further thoughts in the matter, I should be most interested to read them, and would be pleased if you gave the last word below.
HJH
February 2nd, 2007 at 2:02 pm
HJH,
Great analysis. Not much that I can add unto what you wrote above. Unfortunately, I am not a political tactician either so I put this topic out for discussion here to bandy ideas about on the proverbial ‘what is to be done?’ ….
Personally, I would prefer that the GOP return to its economic nationalist heritage and develop a ’21st Century American System’ if you will. But at the moment this seems far-fetched given that despite recent set backs, laissez-faire still has a dominance of the Republican Party and I don’t see the Free Traders leaving or being drummed out of camp anytime soon. GOP protectionists are still widely regarded by the RNC as pariahs or ‘RINOs’ or even worse.
Thus, economic nationalists have to cultivate fellow travelers on the Trade issue, and some are otherwise unwholesome people as you mentioned about the Greens. True, they have no love for the American Republic and some actively admit it. Their beef with Free Trade is that it harms the Third World and they could care less about the plight of the blue-collar and middle class American. Plus, Greens react like Dracula to the ‘N-word’ - nationalism - and most Greens have an uncomromising hatred for capitalism of any form. This could be counter-productive for economic nationalists to get too cosy with the Greens given that the smear apparatus of the laissez-fairists and Dittoheads would have the nation believe that trade protectionists are ’socialists’.One can already hear the ‘toleja sos’ from this above lobby. It’s an uphill battle to educate Americans that what made the USA the onetime second-to -none capitalist economic power was trade protectionism and Free Trade has been the economic downfall.
But the Greens are pariah with the DNC as economic nationalists are with the RNC. Perhaps some crack exists for backchannel cooperation on the Trade issue alone(whatever that can be and how)? Maybe economic nationalists can have a Renewable Energy platform to better entice any Greeny support. But the Greens would also have to move to the right to do so, and the prospects for that
happening are very dim indeed.
Unions can be a better force for a marriage with economic nationalists, as you so aptly put it. The drawbacks to this is that the leadership of said unions are primarily soldiers for Democratic Party candidates, even though the Clintonian ‘New Democrats’ have betrayed them time and time again.Except for the Teamsters, many union leaders resent the GOP for their Right to Work laws etc and there is a big mistrust of any candidate with an ‘R’ next to his or her name for these reasons, even a protectionist Republican. Recall that Pat Buchanan in ‘92 and ‘00 got zilch union support.
Pardon my long-windedness here and am gratified for this forum to express these thoughts.
Thanks.
Mitch