> On Nov 24, 2024, at 2:35 PM, Jim Farmelant via groups.io
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> I was just looking at what both Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx had to say on
> free trade versus protectionism. Both Engels and Marx held that the workers
> movement didn't have a dog in the fights between free traders and
> protectionists but they certainly had thoughts on the roles that both
> protectionism and free trade have played in the development of capitalism.
I think it is different today, or at least it is not about tariffs in the
abstract but at a particular point in history. In a search for cheap labor and
cheap nature, extensive supply chains criss-cross oceans with environmental
destruction not priced in but taken as free inputs. More savings follow when
the "labor inputs" no longer live in ranch houses and bungalows but in
dormitories and crates. There are no independent labor unions in most important
outsourcing locations. This is neoliberal free trade that serves to undermine
past working-class gains in the imperial centers. And it is working for them. I
expect Trump will continue this behind smoke and mirrors.
Trump's tariffs will be for the purpose of helping Trump: There will be
performative protectionism for the press and his base, he will declare
victories, and will collect graft from capitalists to avoid having a tariff on
their imports. That doesn't mean that we don't need to protect the
environment, have environmental restrictions placed on commodity production, or
defend independent working-class organizations.
Mark
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