Localism Vs. Globalism
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Mark Thompson has penned a challenging broadside against skeptics of free trade, including me, and he makes a number of arguments that deserve to be answered. There does not seem to me to be much to the argument that commerce and trade do not weaken distinctions between different local and regional cultures. Clearly, they do, and I think it is clear through the networks of dependence that trade creates that local economies suffer the same atrophying effects as local cultures, all of which expose the people in these localities to greater disruptions when those networks break down or demand dries up. Localists tend to take for granted that dependence on distant centers of wealth and power, which the interdependence at the heart of globalism requires, is antithetical to a decentralized political and economic order. I can imagine why someone might want to reject such a decentralized order, but I simply don’t see how someone maintains that it is compatible with the results of globalist policies.
If regional differences remain in the U.S., they are much less pronounced today than ever before thanks to a combination of mass mobility, technological advance facilitating rapid transport and communication across the continent and shared consumer culture. Minnesotans may not eat fatback and Vermonters may not eat rellenos, but everyone is importing the same pork from the same factory farms in the Midwest, and perhaps the less said about the homogenizing effects of the national Buffalo wing phenomenon the better. We are steadily moving towards the economic, cultural and political monoculture that Thompson claims we are avoiding.
Cultural homogenization on one level has advanced rapidly as transplants relocate from place to place, the highway system has reduced barriers of time and space between different parts of the country and television and radio have steadily eradicated distinctive accents in mass communication, which gradually eliminates them from everyday life as well. At the same time, there has also been fragmentation and dispersion as people have tended towards identifying with others who have similar lifestyles and tastes, so that they can pretend that they belong to non-localized “communities” while becoming steadily more alienated from their actual neighbors. Considering this, Charles Murray’s assumption that the institution of community is somehow being kept “robust and vital” in the current American model is questionable. For Murray, it is necessary to assert:
“Community” can embrace people who are scattered geographically.
This doesn’t seem true at all, but it is the sort of “clarification” that one has to make to defend the model as one that strengthens, rather than enervates, communities.
Thompson is on shakiest ground when he writes:
If a particular industry is so incredibly important to a region or culture, then why can’t that region or culture continue participating in that industry once the primary corporation leaves? Isn’t this, after all, what the whole “Buy Local” movement is about? Why must we only “make things” if we can make fistfuls of money doing it – can’t we “make things” as a hobby? At the very least, can’t we just “make things” on a smaller scale? Put another way, if we believe that it is so important to “make things” to have a vibrant economy, then the way to do that is to, well, “make things.” It’s not to figure out a way to make it profitable to “make things” for sale within our own borders.
I assume this is a sharp bit of polemical rhetoric, or perhaps a joke, because I don’t see how Thompson can’t really understand that depriving a local economy of investment capital makes it impossible for a town or region to just keep “making things.” The communities and regions most adversely affected by the effects of trade agreements are not going to have the time or resources to keep “making things” as they once did, not even on a reduced scale, but either sink into recession or retool entirely to try to pull in other industries.
Localists may not like many of the disruptive effects of “creative destruction,” but I think it is safe to say that we understand the need for incentives and, yes, some profit for economic enterprises to endure. Indeed, I am bit baffled by this entire passage. It is as if those of us critiquing free trade regimes think that people are not self-interested and do not respond to incentives, but that they are all altruists with a built-in overdeveloped sense of solidarity with their neighbors. On the contrary, it is because we know that they are not automatically the latter that there need to be measures that guard against unduly cheap competition from abroad and policies that encourage or reward companies for relocating operations overseas should be resisted. Of course, we are not interested in people making things just to make things as a hobby, nor do I think most of us are interested in people making things that no one is willing to buy at a good price, but we are instead interested in local economies that do not need to rely nearly so much on vast networks of transportation and supply.
For the record, I don’t think the nature of a polity’s trade policies necessarily makes it more or less likely to go to war, just as I don’t believe for a minute that democratization makes states more peaceful. As with democratization, which has tended to intensify and prolong international wars thanks to factors of mass mobilization and total warfare, I think trade policies that create greater interdependence may make small wars by great powers more frequent and they do not make wars between great powers any less likely. Theorists of democratic peace cannot make sense of the war between the two most thoroughly democratic polities of the mid-19th century (the Union and Confederacy), and theorists of an economic liberal peace cannot account for that war between two parts of what had been an enormous free trading zone. One might as well craft a theory of international relations that cannot explain the origins of WWI–such a theory would be essentially useless. If shared economic interests through trade discourage certain conflicts (a British-American war over Venezuela in the 1890s, for instance), they create, widen and escalate others. Europe has not suffered another major continental war since 1945 in large part because it served as the effectively occupied territory of the superpowers for half a century, and continues to live under the protection of U.S. security guarantees, all of which has sublimated European security competition between major states. The fairly artificial and (presumably) temporary U.S. guarantees permitted the creation of the EU, but there is no guarantee that such a trade zone would have precluded warfare or ensures that there will not be renewed warfare in Europe in the future.
On the other hand, part of overseeing the convergence I mentioned earlier involved the maintenance of U.S. hegemony, which has involved several significant foreign wars and numerous smaller military interventions over at least the last thirty years. As Bacevich says in The Limits of Power:
The chief responsibility [of the "indispensable nation"] was to preside over a grand project of political-economic convergence and integration commonly referred to as globalization. In point of fact, however, globalization served as a euphemism for soft, or informal, empire.
Naturally, the focus on global governance came at the expense of local and national security:
Odd as they may seem, these priorities reflected a core principle of national security policy: When it came to defending vital American interests, asserting control over the imperial periphery took precedence over guarding the nation’s own perimeter.
American towns routinely pay the price for the policies of political-economic convergence with respect to trade, and American cities have since paid the price for the policies of imperial management. Not only is globalism antithetical to localism in theory, but the policies that facilitate it are directly or indirectly harmful to American localities themselves.
Cross-posted at Front Porch Republic
Filed under: culture, economics, foreign policy, politics
Well, I disagree with much of what you post. Most specifically:
“Theorists of democratic peace cannot make sense of the war between the two most thoroughly democratic polities of the mid-19th century (the Union and Confederacy), and theorists of an economic liberal peace cannot account for that war between two parts of what had been an enormous free trading zone.”
The three primary causes of the Civil War were, in order: slavery, undemocratic distribution of power within the Confederacy resulting in rule by slaveowning plantation owners at the expense of small freeholders, and tariffs. If you wanted an example that would support your assertion, you picked perhaps the worst one possible.
“One might as well craft a theory of international relations that cannot explain the origins of WWI–such a theory would be essentially useless. If shared economic interests through trade discourage certain conflicts (a British-American war over Venezuela in the 1890s, for instance), they create, widen and escalate others. Europe has not suffered another major continental war since 1945 in large part because it served as the effectively occupied territory of the superpowers for half a century, and continues to live under the protection of U.S. security guarantees ”
This is also puzzling. Europe has been peaceful not because of democracy, but because it was under the influence of globe-spanning hegemons? I fail to see why the latter would prima facie lead to greater peace than the former, nor do I really think you believe in that proposition. If American security guarantees led to peace in Europe, then why do you oppose extending them to Georgia? Because you (quite correctly) don’t think that American security guarantees lead to peace. Such an argument would go against what you have argued elsewhere. But if American security guarantees don’t lead to peace, we need to look elsewhere (at least in part) to explain European history since 1945.
The democratic peace argument holds that democracies do not go to war against each other. The war between the Union and Confederacy makes a mockery of that argument. The democratic peace thesis and its opposite have nothing to do with proximate causes of individual wars. Your point about conflicting interests of the two sides makes my point for me–democratic polities are no less likely to go to war with each other than any other type of regime.
In 1914, there was universal manhood suffrage and parliamentary elections in practically every belligerent state. If democracy is what brings peace to Europe, how could it have failed so dramatically and catastrophically in that case?
I don’t think security guarantees to Georgia would guarantee Georgian security because we would never go to war over Georgia. They are empty promises, and therefore damaging to our real security guarantees to our European NATO allies. Credible NATO security guarantees kept the peace in Europe for almost fifty years. I oppose NATO expansion because it threatens to provoke Russian backlash and threatens the general peace of the continent.
Other than that, you’re on a roll.
I tend to value my freedom to spend my money as I see fit over your impulse to protect me from unduly cheap goods.
I also can’t get too worked up over homogenization, over it’s proliferation or lack thereof. Protectionists and nativists see the same thing and draw whatever conclusions they wish.
That shared economic interests through trade creates, widens and escalates conflicts is illustrated by unconvincing example. This notion would need some significantly better documentation.
“The democratic peace argument holds that democracies do not go to war against each other. ”
That might be the strong version, but the weaker version is that democracies are less likely to go to war with each other.
“The war between the Union and Confederacy makes a mockery of that argument.”
Do you believe it is pure coincidence that the last state to adopt universal (white) male suffrage,South Carolina, was the first to secede?
“In 1914, there was universal manhood suffrage and parliamentary elections in practically every belligerent state. If democracy is what brings peace to Europe, how could it have failed so dramatically and catastrophically in that case?”
Well, I would argue that there are many important structural differences between European governments today and those of 1914 that make war much less likely. It’s true that the existence of representative parliaments did little to make war less likely in 1914.
“I don’t think security guarantees to Georgia would guarantee Georgian security because we would never go to war over Georgia. ”
So it’s simply a matter of our honesty in the matter? If we gave Georgia nuclear weapons (i.e., made our security guarantee iron-clad), would that increase the chances of peace in the Caucasus?
shecky – you must first obtain money in order to spend it. In saying that you don’t want anyone to tell you not to spend on cheap goods, you are also saying that you perhaps you should be unemployed and homeless because someone from mexico or india can and will do your job for far less.
I’ve often commented on the not infrequent shoplifting rings on ebay with 99%+ positive ratings. They are cheaper than even WalMart since they get their products from there but without paying for them. Is that “free trade”? I hope even most libertarians would say no.
But China has an expansionary monetary policy and crony-loans to oligarchs which steal land to build factories and don’t care about killing workers (there seems to be an infinite supply of them) or dumping toxic waste into local rivers. This, unfortunately, is called “comparative advantage” and “free trade”.
There is and always will be a local advantage when it comes to almost everything when laws are supporting free trade instead of the managed, subsidized, regulated trade. My local credit union has better interest rates at both loans and deposits – and they tend not to do evil things (Chase recently imposed a $10/mo fee on most cardholders with excellent FICO scores). The local credit union is your neighbor. You may see the loan officer or teller at church.
Produce is fresher from farmer’s markets.
In John Paul II’s theology of the body, he draws the sharp distinction between things which can be used, and persons which aren’t to be used.
Trade is unifying when done between persons. It is fragmenting when done anonymously – for the complaint against a fraud will be just as anonymous and uncaring as a good product received.
Most people will not knowingly injure people or exploit them. Globalism tends to create a homogenious mass instead of a homosapient mass. Do I care if some amorphous blob has toxic substances? Do I care if the person which made the trinket is watching her children get sick and die?
I’m from the Detroit area. Should I care if those laid off out west have to drive in their Toyotas and Hondas (much less BMWs and Mercedes) to the unemployment office? Should I care if they lose money to media piracy? Perhaps, but only as much they care about the auto workers, which I usually see talked about in derisive terms.
If someone can’t bother to “buy American”, it isn’t that much of a leap to “pirate American” or “steal American”. The person will lose their job in either case.
I can’t save the world. Maybe I can help a starving child in Africa (but even there, our old clothing and food disrupts local textile and farming maybe making things worse). But I can help those around me and locally, and with small degrees of separation.
If the doctrine of subsidiarity is to be believed, I am responsible first for my family, then my village or street, then my city or county, then state or province, then nation, and only lastly and at the proper distance, the world.
Goodbye cruel world, hello sympathetic but highly idiosyncratic village.
It’s not as though we have free trade in any case. In many cases the nations that flood our economy with their products are none to ready to open their markets to competing American goods.
“Do you believe it is pure coincidence that the last state to adopt universal (white) male suffrage,South Carolina, was the first to secede?”
Yes, I think it is, but the relevant question is whether any of the democratic elements of either polity made it less likely to go to war. The theory is that making government accountable to the people who have to fight and die in the war will make wars less likely, because an electorate is going to be wary about sending its sons off to die, but this is disproved time and again. In the heat of the moment during a pre-war crisis, it is the just as often the public that is calling for war and the government that is trying to avoid it rather than the other way around.
On the contrary, I would argue that it was the democratic character of both the Union and Confederacy that made mass mobilization and prolonged, near-total conflict not only possible but virtually inevitable once the fighting began. The same goes for WWI. Democratic politics does not nothing to guard against policies being driven by passion and ideology, but rather makes governments more susceptible to both. The escalation of nationalist and pro-war sentiment during the July crisis was driven by the demands of crowds and mass media. Democratic elements in government certainly do not make wars between democracies less likely. If anything, they seem to make wars harder to avoid once an impasse has been reached, because each government then has to answer to the angry mob that has been riled up in the meantime.
“It’s not as though we have free trade in any case.”
I would agree that our trade arrangements are neither entirely liberalized nor balanced, but even if China did not impose tariffs and we did not have managed trade the problems would be much the same. The trade deficit might be somewhat smaller, but the basic profile of our economy is one of a net importer and that wouldn’t substantially change even if we enjoyed the libertarians’ nirvana of “real,” mutual free trade.