One of the more distressing political trends of recent years is the ascent of the Lou Dobbs voter. If you want a highly favorable view of who the Lou Dobbs voter is, take a look at this article. I was astounded to turn on CNN during a trip two weeks ago and listen to Dobbs’ assault on immigration and globalization. I thought I was back in early 1930 listening to Sen. Smoot discuss the Smoot-Hawley tariffs.
My personal opinion is that the rising tide against globalization in the United States will hurt the Church and hurt its growth. On the economic front, it might drag us into another Depression.
If there is one thing on which almost all economists agree, it is that trade is a good thing for everybody. Take a look, for example, at this article. The New York Times editorial page, for example, dominated by liberals, is pro-free trade. So is the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, obviously conservative.
Free trade makes common sense as a win-win arrangement. The United States makes stuff that the Dominican Republic cannot make. The DR has some stuff the United States can’t profitably grow (such as sugar cane). We send cars and computers to the DR, they send us cheap sugar. Everybody wins.
The moment that a sugar grower in Florida says that Americans should only use Florida-grown sugar (which costs much more to grow than the DR variety), and the government steps in to enforce this with high tariffs, is the moment that U.S. consumers lose. And, by the way, so do tens of thousands of pitifully poor Dominicans. Getting in the way of free trade may make a few individual Americans (like Florida sugar growers) rich, but it is bad news for American consumers (who have to suffer higher prices for sugar) and bad news for the poor in developing nations.
The Smoot Hawley tariffs were widely recognized as deepening and worsening the Depression of the 1930s. Economic activity came to a virtual standstill. Congress is currently considering free trade pacts with Peru, Colombia and South Korea. The new protectionist wave, led by Lou Dobbs, is helping stall the approval of these free trade pacts. Such populist rhetoric is, I fear, about to usher in another period in U.S. history of rejection of free trade. Think I am exaggerating? Look at this poll of American attitudes toward trade. The United States has the lowest level of positive views toward trade of any nation on the list! Our nearest neighbors on this issue are Egypt and the Palestinians.
The issue of immigration has been discussed ad nauseum on these pages. I think there have been some positives with the renewed interest in border security. But it is fascinating to note that in one year most people have moved from “I have no problem with immigration, I just want it to be legal,” to “we have too many immigrants, they are changing the nature of the country.” This despite a huge increase in anti-illegal immigrant enforcement.
The 1930s were the last time the United States was possessed with anti-immigrant fever. In my opinion, the lack of the dynamism of new immigrants eager to open businesses and employ people deepened and worsened the Depression. Immigration helps economic growth — restrictions on the free movement of people slows economic growth. That’s just the way the world works.
From the perspective of the Church, it seems to me extremely clear that the Lord is using modern-day America as an engine to help spread the Gospel worldwide. The person who founded the Church in South Korea heard about the Gospel in the 1940s when he temporarily lived in the United States. He moved back to South Korea, and the Church has exploded there since. The same principle applies to Mexico, Central and South America, the Philippines and many European and African countries, where literally hundreds of thousands of people heard about the Gospel in the United States and took it back to their home countries.
The Lou Dobbs voter — ranting and raving about unfair trade and too much immigration — sees a “Fortress America” separated from a scary and hate-filled world. This is exactly the opposite message that the Gospel preaches, in my opinion. The Gospel sees us all as part of a human family. Yes, there are special things about America that should be honored, protected and promoted (I am not a multiculturalist, so don’t misunderstand my point). But one of the most special things about America is our melting pot history and our unique role as world leader. How can we lead if we follow Lou Dobbs into rejecting the rest of the world?
Geoff,
I agree.
Our only hope is that Lou will get so worked up some day that his head will explode. I keep watching in hopes that it happens on air.
The sad thing is that the diatribes obviously appeal to a lot of listeners–note that Lou is moving to 7:00 p.m. in a few weeks, from the black hole of 6:00 p.m. where fewer people could hear him. And his constant drumbeat of attacks on (1) the guvmint for not throwing the filthy illegal aliens out and (2) the guvmint and big business for assaulting the middle class and (3) communist China for being communists (whatever that means these days) and anything else they do and (4) Eliot Spitzer for being an idiot and (5) the guvmint for selling us and especially the middle class down the river with its free trade policies seems to be infectious. Just as the country has gone south on immigration issues, it’s headed south on free trade/protectionism, but nobody seems to have found the middle class that’s being assaulted by free trade policies or the “crisis” that foreigners among us is causing.
I wondered yesterday if the dark days of McCarthy felt this way. The yahoos are in the ascendant.
Just one question: Have you copies of speeches, etc., that Senator Smoot made during the debate on the tariff? Obviously he supported the bill, but I’d be interested in the tone of his support.
These are the true isolationists — shut down trade, erect protectionist tariffs.
This is where Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo are getting all their support. (Oh, and from the closet racists who use rational arguments to support shutting off all immigration, when it really boils down to their xenophobia.)
Yeah – agreeing with #4 – I think there is an important distinction between someone who is a isolationist versus someone who is nationalistic.
I think it’s definitely reasonable (and Constitutional) to be opposed to supra-national organizations such as the Pan-American Union while still supporting free trade between countries.
Just as an historical quibble….there wasn’t a fervent anti-immigration movement in the 1930’s. The Great Depression affected the whole world, and I think there was a general impression that there was no point of coming to the US, since conditions were bad there and everywhere. Thus immigration numbers dropped drastically, but naturally during the 30’s. I do not think there were any new immigration laws passed during that decade, although perhaps I am wrong. There was, however, thousands of deportations that occurred.
It was actually the 1920’s that saw the rise of an aggressive anti-immigration movement. It was the National Origins Act of 1924 that drastically capped immigration and basically went unchanged until 1965.
….sorry, the history teacher in me couldn’t resist.
I feel kind of ambiguous on this.
(Using your example of Dominican Republic sugar): On the one hand, if–because of climate or soil quality or amount of available land or whatever–the Dominican Republic can produce more sugar, more cheaply than can Florida or other parts of the US, then I say more power to them.
But if it’s just a matter of the Dominican Republic not caring if sugar workers are living at poverty levels or if they lose a finger now and then, then I wonder whether we’re really doing anyone any favors in the long run by a) encouraging the Dominican Republic to maintain the status quo, and b) in the meantime, allowing for the death of our own sugar industry.
Nor do I necessarily think that the link between immigration and economic prosperity justifies ignoring the issue of what cultural values we want to preserve in the US, and whether potential immigrants share those values.
Mike, I agree with your #4. Libertarians are my heroes when it comes to free trade and open borders. You are aware, of course, that Sen. Smoot and Sen. Taft (a Ron Paul hero) were true isolationists in the worst sense. The internationalism represented by Eisenhower was a nice antidote to the populist isolationism of Taft.
These days, Republicans are the primary villains when it comes to anti-immigration rants. But Democrats are the primary villains when it comes to anti-trade rants (although it is worth noting that Bill Clinton and Al Gore were both heroes against their own party when it came to the issue of free trade. Al Gore’s finest hour was debating that know-nothing Ross Perot on NAFTA).
Lou Dobb, once a Republican, now describes himself as a “populist.” Populism always seems to take politicians down negative paths.
As for Sen. Smoot, I honor him as a Church leader, but I disagree strongly with his take on what it means to be a Republican. The isolationist wing of the Republican party in the 1930s and 1940s caused true damage to the country.
Yes, Mike, I understand the difference between Ron Paul’s foreign policy and isolationism, so, please, let’s not go down that threadjack again.
Katie,#6, you are correct that I should have said “the 1920s and the 1930s,” and it is also true there were anti-immigrant movements in other decades. I was primarily thinking of the continuation of the national quotas and the lack of sympathy for European Jews, who really had no place to go in the 1930s partly because of our anti-immigrant policies.
What Dan said in #1.
The ancestors that I have that came to the US after the 1860s, all came only a few years before immigration into the US began to be severely curtailed. Ironically, most of the ancestors that came before either came WAY before (think the Mayflower) or in the middle of the Know Nothing movement’s most successful years. I think we’re all better off for them having come here, particularly since the cousins left behind in Lithuania met an unfortunate end in the 1940s (we have no evidence that they tried to come to the US; we do know some of them got as far as France.) Incidentally, Lithuanians and Poles and other Eastern/Central European types were the equivalent of Mexicans in immigration debates of the early 20th century — they weren’t adjusting well, they were dirty, they stayed in little ghettos and spoke their own languages, they slept five or six families to a single apartment, etc. The kind of rhetoric that men like Lou Dobbs engage in is not only ugly, it also has an unfortunate history. And he’s why I don’t watch very much CNN anymore.
(there’s a great table that compares immigration from various countries over time at the Wikipedia article on immigration to the US.)
Sarah, thanks for reminding me of something I wanted to mention regarding immigration and the Church. As most people who read this blog know, the early Church grew primarily through immigration. Immigrants from England and northern Europe poured into Nauvoo and then later into Salt Lake City. A long string of U.S. administrations basically declared war on the Mormons until nearly the turn of the century. One of the tactics they repeatedly tried (unsuccessfully, thankfully), was to convince European governments to prevent Mormon migrants from leaving Europe and traveling to Deseret. It boggles the modern-day mind to consider the fact that several U.S. presidents would consider it acceptable to prevent people from immigrated based on religion. When I consider what many nativists want to do now — pressure the Mexican government to restrict its people from leaving their own country (just like Communist countries like Cuba) — I think of this.
As an economist, I wanted to share my two cents.
It is dangerous to think of the free trade as a “win-win” situation. Only in the most simple cases can you argue that everyone is better off from free trade. But, since our world is so complex, it is often never the case that EVERYONE wins with free trade. It may be true that, at the aggregate level, both nations have a positive net benefit. But that benefit doesn’t come without some sort of cost to others who may have to suffer from trade.
Now, should that stop trade all together? No. But before the policy makers decide to open the gates to trade, they need to be ready to at least acknowledge those who will be displaced by increased free trade.
Fletcher, you make a good point, but on a macro level we should not let a small amount of displacement cause harm to the majority. Yes, allowing textile imports into this country hurt the textile industry. But textile jobs were low-skill and relatively low paying. The number of people who benefited the greatest were relatively few (the owners and managers of textile mills). By allowing free trade, and the importation of lower-cost textile products, we temporarily displaced some people. Textile owners and managers certainly had to go into other businesses. But the vast majority of workers were able to find jobs with better conditions, moving for example into pharmaceutical companies or working at the new automobile plants in the South. Change is painful and people are going to complain about it. But the reality of a dynamic, growing economy is that competition is a net good because it increases efficiency and working conditions in the long run.
Free trade is almost always a “win-win” in the long run. But you are correct to point out that displacement does take place. The cost of preventing that displacement in the long run is much, much higher than the cost of protecting inefficient industries that will eventually disappear anyway.
Fuzzy terms and concepts like “win-win” need to be quantified, since (as our economist mentioned) there will be some losers. For instance, if it is primarily the rich and super-rich who benefit, what good is it?
But the greatest danger is becoming reliant on things we no longer produce, because it can be done more cheaply elsewhere. If you look at Jared Diamond’s book Collapse, most (or was it all?) of the societies he looked at ( Greenland Vikings, Anastazi, certain islanders, etc), perished because they were reliant on trade, and when the trade routes failed, they could no longer provide for themselves. (There was also an environmental angle, but I will try to stay on topic) The Vikings in Greenland didn’t even have what they needed to build boats to leave.
It is shortsighted for us to eliminate our manufacturing and farming base just because it can be done more cheaply elsewhere. We may realize too late, that just about everything can be done more cheaply elsewhere – and then what will any of us do for work?
Oh, boy you’ve taken that bait. “My personal opinion is that the rising tide against globalization in the United States will hurt the Church and hurt its growth. On the economic front, it might drag us into another Depression.” I’m sorry Geoff that you don’t really understand the issue. Globalization is about control. NAFTA and CAFTA have not resulted in improved economic conditions for anyone, except for corporations. Why can’t people wake up? I’m too tired to even explain it anymore. Some people just need to experience things to learn.
But, Ron, corporations are persons too.
(Btw, this doesn’t mean that I believe what you say about who benefits from NAFTA and CAFTA.)
And even if corporations weren’t persons (in the juridical sense), who owns them? Who works for them? Who buys their products? Who benefits if their prices drop? Ultimately, some human being.
Now, maybe you feel left out, and that it’s always some other person who’s getting all the goodies. The fact is, if you’re in the U.S. you are fabulously wealthy by the world’s standards. So, “whine on, whine on . . .” (sung to the tune of Shine On.
There was considerable anti-immigrant sentiment in the 1930s. In fact, apparently there were sizeable deportations of citizens of Mexican ancestry.
“During the Great Depression, anywhere from one to two million people were deported in an effort by the government to free up jobs for those who were considered ‘real Americans’ and rid the county governments of ‘the problem.’ The campaign, called the Mexican Reparation, was authorized by President Herbert Hoover. Although President Franklin Roosevelt ended federal support when he took office, many state and local governments continued with their efforts.”
http://campusapps.fullerton.edu/news/2005/valenciana.html
David H, thanks for sharing that. I suspected that was true but didn’t have the history at my fingertips.
The story is different when you live in Southern California all the local schools districts are going down the tubes because they are overrun providing free education to non-taxpayers children.