donsutherland1

aegyptos

Thanks Don. I'm always amazed that people don't immediately grasp this salient but simple point.

As far as a possible post-nation state world order is concerned, assuming that such a thing were possible, I have yet to see anyone make a reasonable case for why it might be desireable either in the foreign policy arena or in the economic arena.

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Scucca

The nation state, however, should respond to changes in economic conditions generated by globalisation. Consider the United Kingdom. Given economies of scale can still be generated with a small domestic market, there is absolutely no reason why the UK should not see political disintegration. Indeed, in terms of delivering public goods, such disintegration is vital as it ensures a more homogeneous population.

Destroying economic opportunities is rarely in the national interest. "Its the national interest, honest" is typically a cop-out to justify warped trade relations. It becomes no different to the economic nationalists that bogusly referred to trade as a zero sum game

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The silenced majority

Force conservatism? That's an interesting little notion. How do you force the negation of ideology?

The British empire lost it's economic superiority by encouraging free trade with the then protectionist US. Interestingly enough we have done just the same in our trade deals with protectionist state-run economies.

The only thing that real conservatism has to do with this is recognizing that any ideology should be resisted when reality needs to be bent to compensate for that which had been promised, but has yet to be delivered. (ex: an economic and socially liberal China via our 'free-trade' with them; $10,000 luxury cars from Mexican Auto plants)

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'To begin with unlimited freedom, is to end with unlimited despotism." ~ Dostoevsky

Scucca

Note the little c! Conservatism becomes a side issue in political economy. See, for example, the conservative social welfare function. This attaches greater weight to losses than gains, ensuring that change is discouraged.

Trade will lead to redistribution effects, given there will be winners and losers. There will of course be those that find that disagreeable and will find any means possible to maintain the status quo

Nope! First, we have to refer to static gains. For example, her comparative advantage (and therefore gains from such liberalisation) reflected her naval dominance. Second, we have to refer to dynamic gains, The British Empire managed to maintain its unnatural dominance a tad longer via trade liberalisation

donsutherland1

rathi

The only way that you could get world government, is if we somehow had other world governments to interact with. Generally speaking, history shows that nations tend towards the maximum size that culture and technology can permit. Its easy for a more broad and encompassing government to dominate a more specific government. For example, it was easy for the imperialist nation states to
overcome the more specific tribal groups. Thus, if other unified world governments existed, they could easily overcome our fragmented planet unless we too unified. However, since that is not the case, the nation state will remain for a while longer.

Mercantilism is not connected to strategic defense materials, although they use similar tactics. Mercantilism was based on closed trade to economically benefit the nation. The idea behind strategic materials is that you are willing to sacrifice economic benefit to insure the power of the military. Steel is a vital metal behind the American military, and loosing access to our steel would hurt military power. Thus we take measure to insure that the steel is made in America. Should war break out, we can insure that we have enough steel to build the weapons needed to fight. Essentially, we pay extra for steel as part of the overall cost of our military budget. Germany's and Japans inability to get strategic materials during WW2 greatly damaged their war effort.

That said, I don't agree with all implementations of strategic materials and it sometimes used as an excuse for blatant protectionism. However, as a concept it remains sound.

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He'd be right at home on some ancient battlefield, swinging an axe into somebody's face.

Scucca

It was based on the notion that trade is a zero sum game and that you must follow the rule 'export more than you import'. Compared to the modern day version of economic nationalism, it can actually be defended as rational. For example, consider Steele (1998, The Money Economy: Mercantilism, Classical Economics and Keynes' General Theory, American Journal of Economics & Sociology, Vol. 57 Issue 4, pp 485-498):

"An economy with chronic unemployment faces two problems: it is short of remunerative investment opportunities at home and it requires the means to bring down the domestic rate of interest. The mercantilist objective — a trade surplus — gave a remedy in three parts: overseas markets brought enhanced returns on investment; foreign currency earnings offered the means to finance overseas investment; and, by adding to the domestic circulation, overseas earnings exerted pressure on domestic interest rates.

For all of these reasons, the mercantilist preoccupation with the trade balance was not (as classical economics had insisted) 'little better than nonsense'. Unlike the mercantilist zero-sum game of trade balances, the option of an autonomous domestic interest rate was open to all, so that all countries can contribute to the quite remarkable result of 'restoring economic health and strength internationally' (Keynes, 1936, p. 349)"

The economic nationalists instead are focused on destroying economic opportunities.

The problem was raw materials. The US doesn't have the same limitations. Also modern weaponry (and therefore warfare) is itself based on the consequences of trade, with R&D focused on finding military use of technical progress that crosses national boundaries.

rathi

If the U.S. were to completely stop producing its own steel, should a full scale war occur, there was be a major lag in trying to re-make the industry to meet our steel requirements. That sort of lag could prove costly or even fatal in war. However, as I said, the amount of steel required for strategic defense isn't that high. Many barriers could be lowered and still maintain a safe reserve. Strategic materials are used as an excuse for protectionism far too much recently.

Scucca

I couldn't agree. The nature of modern weaponry (and warfare) has ensured we can reject the security angle about basic intermediate inputs. We instead have to focus on R&D and how it is free trade that maximises technical diffusion