Do your comments about "tariffs" also apply to "managed trade," the struggle against NAFTA, etc.? At any rate, Admam's suggestion implies an alliance between large fractions of industrial capital and organized labor, which was a fact in the advanced capitalist countries during the so-called "Golden Age." I was interested in Patrick's original comments because I interpreted him to be suggesting that there was structural basis for alliances between organized labor and commercial or financial fractions of capital. Was this a mis-reading Patrick?
Edwin (Tom) Dickens
Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> Adam Stevens wrote:
>
> >Would protective tariffs be an example? Tarrifs in the US were designed to
> >shield the new American industrial sector from foreign (eg British)
> >competition -- "fostering infant industries," in List's words. By the late
> >19th century, American industry was out producing the British in all the key
> >sectors (like steel) but the tariffs were maintained. Only now they were
> >maintained to "protect the wages of the American worker," -- or at least
> >that became the publicly stated rationale. Now, I'm sure no one really
> >believes that the American capitalist class was interested in protecting the
> >wages of American workers from European competition, but the fact is that US
> >wages WERE higher, and that protective tariffs enjoyed popular support.
>
> Tariffs are one thing for a "developing" country, and another for a
> rich one. In the U.S. tariffs would be a subsidy to our capitalists,
> who would have no incentive to share it with the working class.
> Better to strengthen the institutions of the working class than
> subsidize capitalists, I say.
>
> Doug