Tag: Theodore Roosevelt

General, Globalism vs. Nationalism, Nationalist Theory, Politics

Socialist Globalism and the God of Equality

Bob Claude |

Source; Library of Congress

When Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto in 1848, they were reacting to the wave of globalization that came with the industrial revolution of the 19th century. The cartoon above from the British magazine Puck graphically showed the toxic political results of the resulting despair. It shows a boar of corporate greed sowing the seeds of the socialism that Marx & Engels advocated. Their response was a radical form of equality that believed “from each according to his ability to each according to his need”. It closed with the famous phrase “Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains”.

Thus, socialism began with a cry to abandon national identity for international class identity and struggle. The Socialist Internationale was organized as a cross-border movement of similar political parties in various European nations. As resistance to its goals stiffened, the movement turned ugly with the rise of the anarchists, whose tactics of assassination and violence eventually reached the U.S.. Theodore Roosevelt never forgot he became President due to the bullet of the anarchist who assassinated President McKinley. It sparked his own commitment to fighting corporate greed and concentration and the exploitation it created, but within a free market system.

In the end, the nineteenth century call for international worker solidarity perished in the trenches of World War I as each nation’s proletariat willingly marched to war not against the rich, but against opposing enemy nations. The pull of national identity proved to be more powerful than class identity.  The Soviet and Chinese Communist attempts to build a globalist socialist movement resulted in further oppression and eventually adopted nationalist themes to spur their people to defend themselves from foreign foes. While western European socialist parties saw limited success in the interwar period, the U.S. turned to a conservative isolationism and during the New Deal of FDR, a brief progressive nationalism.

Modern socialist globalism is no longer the province of some small Western political parties, but is now officially advocated by the foreign policy of the majority of the Global South that still sees itself as victims of colonialism (see this previous post). In the US, the call to class identity is joined to similar calls to ethnic and gender loyalty fueled by a strange combination of victim psychology and guilt. They consider themselves victims of oppression by the rich while also being guilty of oppressing other nations simply by being American. In foreign policy, this leads to either liberal interventionism to forcibly spread “freedom” or subordinating legitimate national interests to other nations as a way of appeasing the god of equality. Domestically it creates a destructive race to the bottom as risk-taking declines and social jealousies feed on themselves.

TR spent his political career fighting not only the boar of corporate greed, but also the siren song of victim psychology.  He called Americans to remember their heritage as leaders of a new social experiment.  This was the basis of his nationalism.  As we move to explore the nationalist response to globalism, we will first consider another, more basic form of national identity and how it can go wrong as well.

Next; Ethnic Nationalism and the Gods of Blood and Soil

General, Globalism vs. Nationalism, Nationalist Theory, Politics

Corporate Globalism and the God of Efficiency

Bob Claude |

We all have heard of Adam Smith and his theory of the invisible hand of the free market. Few know the name of David Ricardo, a nineteenth century British economist who developed the theory of comparative advantage that is the basis of the current system of international trade. It has since morphed from a mere economic theory to an ideology used to justify corporate and elitist power. It’s fixation on efficiency has shamelessly fueled inequality and ignores its own weaknesses in explaining the real world of today’s economy.

Ricardo’s theory posited that countries should specialize in producing goods in which they have a comparative advantage in either labor, capital or land costs. The classic example is a difference in labor costs. If a country could produce a good at a lower cost because of lower wages, then other countries should trade with that country for good and concentrate on producing others. When countries specialize based on comparative advantage, global production increases, leading to more efficient resource allocation and lower consumer prices.

Comparative advantage formed the basis of the growth of international trade over the last decades of the 20th century. However, it remained only an economic theory until New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman began championing the process in a series of books that quickly became the gospel of corporate globalism. In his book “The World is Flat”, Friedman regaled his readers with how Asians were lifting themselves out of poverty by performing low wage jobs in the new “flat” world of free trade. At the same time, he unwittingly demonstrated the dangers of this trend when he told the story of New London, Connecticut, and its transformation in the new world. An economy once based on shipbuilding and defense work declined to become a gambling mecca with a small elite pharmaceutical research center. Friedman celebrated this decline in an eerie echo of Ayn Rand when he wrote

Change is hardest on those caught by surprise. Change is hardest on those who have difficulty changing too. But change is natural; change is not new; change is important. Work gets done where it can be done most effectively and efficiently. That ultimately helps the New Londons, New Bedfords and New Yorks of this world even more than it helps the Bangalores and Shenzhens.

Here are the tenets of corporate globalism for all to see,  The American Dream, national strength, and family income security are all offered in sacrifice to the god of corporate efficiency and income. Indeed, Friedman said it should be a primary goal of public policy to foster this trend and improve the lives of everyone around the world, despite the impact on its own citizens and national security. 

In the process, Friedman and corporate globalists glossed over the real world weaknesses of this socioeconomic model. First, it assumes markets are in perfect competition and there are no trade barriers, a practical impossibility in a world distorted by the mercantilism of Chinese and other countries. Comparative advantage also assumes that externalities such as environmental pollution are confined to the country that elects to endure them. Carbon emissions know no such boundaries and so developing countries and China can power their economies with coal while exporting the climate costs to the rest of the world. 

A more recent economic theory highlights the real hypocrisy of corporate globalism.  Known as the Stolper-Samuelson theorem, it admits that comparative advantage increases national wealth and efficiency but shows that the benefits of this wealth flow mainly to holders of capital and land at the expense of labor, especially in developed countries.  Hence, corporate elites have an economic incentive to promote international trade at the expense of wage earners.  They then can exploit national differences in taxation and regulation to further enrich themselves.   

As Theodore Roosevelt pointed out, corporate greed and power can be as much of a threat to freedom as the government. In a world of multinational corporations often subsidized by foreign states, it is an even bigger threat.  National governments are often a more effective check on this power than the imperfect market of international trade. In the late nineteenth century, contemporaries of Ricardo (and Roosevelt) tried to address these problems with globalist methods that, in the end, failed and ended up creating new methods of exploitation instead.  

Next: Socialist globalism and the god of equality  

2024 Election, General, Nationalist Theory, Politics

We all must be in the Arena

Bob Claude |

The nation is relieved that former President Trump survived yesterday’s assassination attempt. However, an audience member was killed in the attempt and another injured. They and their families should be in our thoughts and prayers. The photo of Trump defiantly raising his fist before the flag recalls Theodore Roosevelt’s defiance of the attempt on his life during his 1912 presidential campaign, famously declaring that “It takes more than that to kill a bull moose”.

I lead, however, not with that quote, but with Roosevelt’s equally famous “Man in the Arena” speech, where he calls all Americans to embrace the risks of action and the kind of “dust and sweat and blood” that Trump defied. This call does not necessarily mean a call to enter politics ourselves, but to the kind of courage that those who fight for our country here or overseas live daily.  This injuries and deaths at the Trump rally now call us to a new fight for our political life here at home.

Over the past few years, our political debate has coarsened and polarized to the point where violent rhetoric has become shamefully common. Only last week President Biden promised to put his opponent Trump “in the crosshairs”.  A poll in the New York Times revealed that 10% of respondents believed violence was justified against Trump and a similar percentage believed the same about President Biden. The rest of us have seen all of this and either shrugged our shoulders or remained silent out of fear.

We can no longer be among the “cold and timid” who assume this is someone else’s problem. It is time to summon the courage to confront calls to hatred and violence in the political arena and ostracize those who engage in them.  Media outlets that feature or promote them must be shunned and boycotted. Finally, each of us must have the courage to confront friends and acquaintances who engage in such hateful rhetoric and ostracize them as well.  If necessary, we should not hesitate to report them to law enforcement if they pose an imminent threat.  Otherwise, the hatred will not only worsen, but we will also then be complicit in what happens afterwards.